


The Green Ring

by AllisonChance



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Chronicles of Narnia References, English is Elvish, F/M, Fellowship of the Ring, Gen, Maura is Frodo, Modern Girl in Middle Earth, No Tenth Walker, Quotes from Fellowship of the Ring, Slice of Life, Slow Build, Slow Burn, The Shire, Weekly Updates, Westron, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:47:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 68,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28162656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllisonChance/pseuds/AllisonChance
Summary: Charlotte Williams bought a set of rings from an antique shop on a whim and found herself lost in a new and unfamiliar world. When she lost one of her rings, she was trapped far away from home. An old man named Mithrandir offered to take her along on his trip to visit an old friend with a peculiar ring of his own. Later, Charlotte sets off on an errand to meet the elves of Rivendell. A slow build with a lot of time spent worldbuilding and getting to know the characters. Originally written Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style for my friend who has no knowledge of Tolkien. If you ever wondered what a modern girl really would do in Middle Earth, then this is the story for you!
Relationships: Glorfindel (Tolkien)/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 98
Kudos: 208





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story began as a game between myself and my friend S in March of 2020. We both were anxious about the state of the world and this was a fun distraction. She helped me create the character of Charlotte and I wrote the story. Whenever the main character needed to make a decision, S told me what to do. The thing is, S hasn't read any Tolkien and she hasn't seen the movies in years. I didn't tell her that the setting for this story was Middle Earth. She went into the story as clueless as Charlotte. If you ever wondered what a modern girl really would do in Middle Earth, then this is the story for you!
> 
> I also wrote in references and Easter eggs for my favorites stories and authors in the #moderngirlinmiddleearth tag. Thanks to everyone who has been writing incredible stories in this tag!
> 
> Finally, I'm still writing this story with S. I plan to update once a week until we catch up to where S is a few months from now. Happy reading!

“Do you have everything you need?” Charlotte’s mum asked as she collected the breakfast dishes from the table.

“Yes, Mum,” Charlotte said. 

“She’s thirty-four, Julie,” said her dad. “I’m sure she knows to pack her panties and a toothbrush.”

“Dad!” Charlotte covered her face with her hands.

“Ah-ha, but still not too old to be impervious to my patented charm,” he said, tapping the side of his nose.

Her mum rolled her eyes and stepped through the open doorway into the kitchen. “I’ll just get this washed up and then we’ll see you to the station.”

“I can take an Uber, you know,” Charlotte said. 

Her father picked up a mug of coffee and shook his head. “You can’t expect to move to Glasgow and not be seen off at the station by your old parents.”

“And I think Luke and Laura are going to bring the kids,” her mum called from the kitchen.

“It’s Glasgow, not the end of the world,” she protested. But she knew that not only was her protest futile, it was also feeble. Being seen off at the station would soften the blow of leaving, even if just a little.

Dad just smiled and winked. She knew that he understood.

The late morning sun shone in through the patio doors which opened up into the garden. The same garden she and her brothers had played in when they were children. There were the same old flower baskets hooked over the fence along the back that they had (more than once) knocked clean off of their hooks with an errant ball or wildly swinging croquette mallet. The same garden gnomes they had broken and Mum had glued back together. The umbrella clothesline that all three of them had, at one time or another, run headlong into and ended up with a goose egg on their foreheads. Instead of Luke’s football or Oliver’s bicycle, however, there was now a Thomas the Train tricycle and a neon pink kickball: evidence of the time her nephew and niece had spent outside at Nana and Papa’s house. 

Her dad sat with his back to the door, slurping at his coffee while he squinted down at his mobile. He swiped with his whole arm as he checked the weather. In the kitchen, her mum was humming as she scraped the plates into the bin. It was peaceful, calm. So very unlike the last three weeks.

In one fifteen-minute meeting, her boss had upended her life. On one hand, she had been promoted. Lead Photojournalist for the BBC in Glasgow. On the other hand… she had to move to Glasgow. 

Not that she had anything against Glasgow, as she’d been quick to clarify to her sister-in-law, Laura. It was just that it was so far away and she liked living in London. Even if she did have to have a flatmate. London felt like it was at the center of everything. Her assignments for work were diverse and interesting. A protest here, a snap of the Prime Minister there. What did Glasgow have to offer anyway?

Laura had informed her that she sounded bitter. Charlotte's retort had been that maybe she really did feel bitter. 

“It could be worse. Could be Milton Keynes,” Laura had said, softening her sarcasm with a laugh. 

Charlotte had tried to be more positive after that but had, generally, failed miserably. She'd told her flatmate, Abby, that she was moving and Abby had found someone to take her place in less than a week and could the new girl move in on the weekend? So Charlotte had had to call on Luke and her parents to help her box up her flat in two days. They’d hired a van and ferried all of her belongings down the A40 to her parent’s home in Wembley. Her dad had joked that they didn’t need to use the garage anyway, as they stacked her things inside while it poured rain outside.

Then she’d had to hunt for flats online. What a wretched experience that was. Everything looked nice enough in the thumbnails, but as soon as she opened the advert she’d notice the wide-angle lens, the bumped up brightness, and, in one case, a zealous use of the clone stamp tool that made her downright concerned about what they might be trying to cover up. She’d narrowed it down to three that she liked and had called to make inquiries. The first two flats had already been taken by the time she called but the third was still available. So she took it. 

She still hadn’t seen it in person. She really hoped that it wasn't going to be a dump.

Once she’d secured a flat then there had been the nightmare of finding a company to move her things. Lots of phone calls and many headaches later and movers had come that morning to pack all of her worldly possessions into their lorry. All she had at her parents’ house was an overnight bag and her backpack.

“The piano had better be in one piece when I get there,” she’d sourly remarked to her dad as they watched the lorry rumble down the street.

“Everything will be fine, love,” he’d said. “Now come on, your mum’s in the kitchen. She’s got a whole fry up waiting for us.”

And so, that was that. Once her mum was done with the dishes they’d get into her parents’ car and drive into London. Her train departed just after twelve. They’d have plenty of time for goodbyes.

“What are you and Mum going to do after you see me off?” Charlotte asked. She twisted her coffee cup around and around the clear plastic film that covered her mother’s pink and cherry tablecloth.

Her dad shrugged and looked up from his phone. “I think your Mum and Laura want to take the kids to the zoo.”

She schooled her face so that she didn’t look disappointed. She loved taking Thomas and Amelia to the zoo. It was fun to be the indulgent aunt and buy them sweets and follow them from exhibit to exhibit. There was something about seeing a tiny little two-year-old with sparkly purple wellies shouting: “PENGWING!” as loudly as she could that filled Charlotte with delight.

“It’s going to be fine,” Dad said. He reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “We’re just a phone call away.”

Her smile was watery and her dad patted her hand sympathetically.

“That’s done,” Mum said, stepping out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a dishtowel. “Shall we go?”

“If I have to,” Charlotte said morosely.

———

Euston was crowded. It had taken Dad nearly forty minutes to find a place to park and then they’d had to walk another ten to get to the station itself. Mum had asked her at least a dozen times if she had her ticket. The answer was always yes.

Luke, Laura, and their kids were waiting outside of the station. Amelia (sparkling wellies and all) was sitting in her pushchair chewing on her dummy. Thomas, clinging to Luke’s hand, had his head tilted all of the way back to stare at workers on scaffolding above his head. 

“Charlie!” Luke said with a grin. He was taller than even Dad. He was a ginger-like everyone in their family, but his hair was carrot-colored and not the softer strawberry blonde that Charlotte and Oliver shared. He gave her a warm, one-armed hug. “Are you ready?”

“Not really,” she said.

“It’s going to be okay,” Laura said, stepping around the pushchair to give Charlotte a hug of her own. 

“Charlie, look at the workers,” Thomas said. “They’re using specialized em’quipment.”

She turned to look at the workers perched on the scaffolding. “I see, Thomas.”

Thomas, who was four, was fascinated by anything even peripherally related to construction.

“I got a kitty!” shouted Amelia. She waved a blue plush cat. “Kitty says meow, meow!”

For the first time all morning, Charlotte found a genuine smile on her face. 

“It's just from Poundland, I haven’t the faintest why she loves it so much,” said Laura in a mock whisper.

In the end, they decided it was too crowded in the station to say their goodbyes, so they said goodbye on the pavement outside. There were hugs all around and Thomas pulled a lumpy package wrapped in glossy birthday paper and secured with yarn.

“Melia and me made this for you,” he said. 

“I think Mummy had a hand in that as well,” Luke said.

“Are you going to open it?” Thomas asked, waving the package at her.

Charlotte opened it up to find a locket necklace. The chain on either side of the locket was strung with brightly colored plastic beads (“I did that all by myself,” declared Thomas). She opened the locket to find a photograph of Thomas and Amelia. They’d clearly been posed with Amelia on Thomas’s lap but the toddler was flailing and Thomas had his mouth open, teeth flashing in an exaggerated smile. Charlotte laughed. 

“I thought you’d like it,” Laura said. Thomas was hanging onto her hands, swinging back and forth, restless and bored of the protracted goodbyes. “A little bit of authentic Williams family chaos to take with you.”

“It's perfect,” Charlotte said. She put the locket on at once and knelt down to show Thomas. “Thank you, Tom-tom and Melia”

“You’re welcome,” he said.

“I welcome!” shouted Amelia. 

“Can I have a hug before I go?” she asked.

Thomas launched himself into her arms for a tight hug. “Bye, Charlie.”

“Bye,” she said thickly.

Amelia demanded a hug and a kiss and a kiss for her kitty. Then Mum wanted one last hug. Charlotte picked up her bag and slung her backpack onto her shoulders.

“Let us know when you get there,” Mum said.

“Or send us a text if you get bored,” Laura said with a grin.

“See you, Charlie.” Luke patted her backpack. “Stay out of trouble.”

“I’ll do my best,” she said. 

Dad didn’t say anything but he held out his arms for a hug. 

“See you around, Dad,” she said.

He squeezed her and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

Then Charlotte headed into the station. She was tempted to turn back and look one last time, but she knew that would make it harder to leave. She tried to tell herself that she was being ridiculous. She was going to Glasgow, not Mars.

She didn’t have to wait at all for her train, it was already waiting at the platform. She found her seat and took her phone and headphones out of her bag. She had over five hours to go before they reached Glasgow. She hoped that the seat next to her would stay empty but a teen girl slouched into it a few minutes before the train left the station. 

Charlotte checked her messages on her phone. She already had a text from Laura. She opened it up to find a picture of Dad, Thomas, and Luke making silly faces in front of the giraffe enclosure. They certainly hadn’t wasted any time getting to the zoo. She quickly typed out a reply as the train pulled away from the station.

The trip was boring. Not even her audiobook (a memoir of a celebrity that her mum had recommended) could hold her attention. The teen next to her was watching a movie on her phone and Charlotte found herself staring dully at it, mind wandering. She couldn’t place the movie at first but after about ten minutes realized it was one of the Lord of the Rings movies. Boring. Even more boring than her audiobook. She turned to stare out of the window, hoping she’d fall asleep.

———

It was half-past eight before she stood alone in her flat surrounded by furniture and stacks of boxes. Her piano was shoved up against the wall by the fireplace. Not an ideal location but, frankly, she was too tired by the time the movers brought it in to think of a better spot to put it. At least it was in one piece. She’d played a few scales just to check.

Charlotte hefted a box of books off of her armchair and plopped down. 

“What a mess.” She groaned rubbing her eyes with the heel of her palm.

Her flat in London had been partially furnished and between herself and Abby they’d made quite the comfortable living space. However, seeing the furniture that was hers alone in the stark white light of her new flat was depressing. One armchair, no sofa. A chest of drawers. A bookshelf that was too small for her small library of novels. At least there was a table and chairs in the kitchen and a bed frame and mattress in the bedroom. She wouldn’t have to rough it on the floor until she could get to IKEA.

Charlotte dragged herself out of the chair and Googled the top restaurants with carry out. The top-rated one offered pizza.

“Pizza it is,” she said to herself.

Order placed for a late dinner, she set to work shifting through boxes to find her sheets and blankets. She told herself that once her bed was made she’d feel better. Of course, the blankets were under about five boxes of random household items: small appliances, decorations, candles (they had their own dedicated box), and more books. 

She made up her bed and returned to the lounge. The pizza still hadn’t arrived so she pulled her bookshelf across the room. Putting some of her books away would empty out at least a few boxes. Fewer boxes would mean less clutter and less stress. 

Her book collection consisted of a good deal of literary and historical fiction, large coffee table books of photography, and an impressive collection of memoirs. In the second box, she came across her little stash of children’s books to read with Thomas and Amelia when they visited. Pat the Bunny. Monster Building Machines. Cat in the Hat. A dozen picture books that she’d read over and over to the delight of the four and two-year-old. She removed her Outlander books and replaced them with the children’s books. Thomas and Amelia might not visit for months but it was important to her that their books had a prominent spot on her shelf. It made them feel closer.

Her mobile buzzed from where it sat on the floor beside her.

Oliver.

She tapped to answer it, tucking the phone between her ear and shoulder as she continued to stock her bookshelf.

“Welcome home!” Oliver said, his voice bright and cheerful as always.

“Hardly,” she said.

“It can’t be that bad,” he said. “Your attitude is the reason why the Scots hate us.”

“Not centuries of being ass hats?” 

“Well, that too,” he said, chuckling.

Charlotte shifted to her knees to reach the middle shelf. “What time is it in Romania anyway?”

“Midnight—an early night for me. It’s what? Nine for you?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you eaten yet?”

“Pizza’s on the way, Mum,” she said.

“Someone has got to look out for you,” he said. Then, sensing her low spirits, he launched into a funny story about his supervisor at work who had gotten stuck in the mud (“Up to their thighs! Ha!”). If Luke was the serious and responsible brother, Oliver was the funny and carefree brother. He worked in Romania at a nature reserve. She’d visited once. Too much outdoor time for her. There was a reason she was not a wildlife photographer.

A few minutes into their conversation she went to the door to collect her pizza and then she moved to the kitchen to eat it directly out of the box. She was just too knackered to bother finding the box with her dishes and silverware. They talked for over an hour before they were both yawning too much to carry on. Before they said goodbye, Oliver reminded her that he was just a phone call away.

She didn’t have any bin bags so she left the pizza box on the table before returning to the lounge to unpack a little more. She yawned again as she opened up the next box, her camera equipment. Three DSLR cameras and a dozen prized lenses nestled in soft gray foam forms. She took out each piece carefully and set them on the mantle of the fireplace. The last lens she pulled out was her newest acquisition. An 85mm 1.4 lens, perfect for taking a great headshot or portrait.

“What the hell?”

The lens was cracked.

Not the actual glass lens she realized to mixed horror and relief, but the black plastic body of the lens. A long crack ran around the entire focus ring.

“How the hell did this happen?” She twisted the focusing ring but it just spun around in her hand. “This is a thousand-pound lens! What did they do with this box? Slam it to the ground? Fuck.”

She was so furious with the movers that her hands were shaking as she set it on the mantle next to the other lenses. It was too late to call the movers and when she went to bed half an hour later she was still fuming and she lay awake for several hours, pissed off and unable to sleep. It was only after she gave in to a good hard cry that she was finally able to drift off into a light and fitful sleep.

———

Her morning was consumed with arguing with one customer service representative at the moving company after another until she finally spoke to someone with enough rank to agree to pay for the repair or replacement of the lens. Then she’d spent an hour on Google searching for someone, anyone, in the Glasgow area who could fix the focus ring. After several fruitless phone calls, she found a shop in the city center that could not only replace the ring but would do it that day.

It was a blustery and wet March day, so she had to hunt through the boxes for her raincoat and brolly before she left. Thankfully her Uber driver was a saint and waited while she searched. Appropriately dressed for the weather and with her lens nestled safely in her camera bag, she set off for the repair shop.

It was located off a narrow alley not far from a train station. The rain had let up a bit so she didn’t bother wrestling with the umbrella. The owner, a lanky man with a large mustache took one look at the lens and tutted sadly. 

“What a shame,” he said. “I can have this fixed in a few hours.”

“Really? That’s ace,” she said, heaving a sigh of relief. “Can I pick it up today?”

“Stop by at two, it should be done by then.”

“You are my hero,” she declared, internally vowing to give his little camera shop all of her business going forward.

Instead of taking an Uber back home, Charlotte decided to wander around the city center and poke into some of the little shops. She rationalized that she wanted to get to know her new city better but she knew it was because she didn’t want to go back to her empty flat and deal with unpacking. 

She stopped first in a little boutique but she felt woefully out of place with her bag, camera bag, and an umbrella over one arm and her wet coat leaving puddles whenever she stopped to shuffle through a rack of dresses. Next door was a coffee shop so she stopped there and ordered a tea to go. A splash of milk and a dash of sugar, of course.

Sipping her tea she crossed the street to an antique store.

The bell above the door tinkled merrily as she stepped inside. The shop was dim and heaped floor to ceiling with a wide variety of items. Knickknacks and bric-a-brac covered every available surface. Books were piled up on the floor. There were boxes of old photographs sitting on the faded cushions of ancient chairs. Vases made of crystal and painted ceramic towered on end tables. There were narrow aisle weaving and wending through the shop with little rubber mats covering crisscrossing electrical cords for the various glass shaded lamps.

“Good afternoon, dear,” called a woman who was practically hidden behind a counter near the back of the store. “Is it still raining?”

“It’s stopping, I think,” Charlotte said. She tucked her elbows close and held her bags to her body as she wove through the store.

“This weather is rubbish on my old knees,” she said. “Have a look around, dear. Let me know if you need any help.”

“Thanks.” Charlotte gave her a little smile.

She’d always liked antique shops. It probably stemmed from the fact that when she’d been little her father couldn’t say no to a good boot sale. He’d always found treasures to take home—much to her mother’s chagrin. Maybe what she needed was something special for her new flat. Something quirky or interesting to make it seem more like home.

As she wandered she looked at the furniture, thinking that maybe something old made of solid wood would be a good fit. For a while, she contemplated an old wardrobe made of a silvery wood. Then she remembered that anything she bought she’d probably be responsible for getting back to her flat. After her experience with the movers, she had no inclination to hire anyone else to move furniture for her any time in the near future. 

Farther back in the shop, there was a glass display with various pieces of jewelry. She crouched in front of it, balancing on the balls of her feet, inspecting the necklaces, rings, bracelets, and pins. She was admiring a string of amber beads when two rings nestled together in an open black velvet box caught her eye. 

One was yellow and the other was green and they shone and gleamed as if they were in the sunlight instead of in the back of a dim and dusty antique store. She could hear a faint humming noise, like the low whir of a fan from another room. 

“Aren’t they lovely?” asked the old woman from right behind her.

Charlotte yelped and jumped to her feet.

“I did not mean to startle you,” said the woman. She was tall with dark hair shot through with white and glinting gray eyes. She patted Charlotte's arm. “It’s said that they’re magic rings from the lost city of Numinor.”

“The lost city of Numinor?”

“Sometimes it’s known as Atlantis.” The lady smiled. “Would you like to try one on?”

“Why not?” Charlotte said, shrugging. She still had at least ninety minutes to kill before she was due back at the repair shop.

The shopkeeper took a keyring out of her pocket. She unlocked the case and then pulled white cloth gloves on her hands before reaching in and removing the black velvet box containing the rings.

The sound of the fan whirring grew louder. Charlotte thought she could hear the faintest melody in the hum of the blades.

“They’re not metal, you know,” said the lady. She picked up the green ring. It shimmered, opalescent, in the light. “It’s a dust or powder suspended in resin. Quite a clever idea. Aren’t the colors just gorgeous? Give me your hand, my dear. I think it will fit perfectly.”

Charlotte had to juggle her umbrella, paper to-go teacup into her left arm as she held out her right hand. The lady slipped the ring onto her ring finger. It was a perfect fit. 

“I’ll sell you the pair for twenty pounds,” the shopkeeper said.

“Twenty pounds for a pair of rings from the lost city of Atlantis?” Charlotte laughed. “I guess I know a bargain when I see one.”

The lady patted her hand and smiled. She closed the velvet box holding the other ring and led the way back to the front of the shop. “It matches your eyes.”

“Thanks,” Charlotte said, highly amused by the whole exchange. She wondered what Oliver’s reaction would be when she told him the story of the crazy old lady and her so-called magic Atlantis rings. He’d laugh so hard. She looked down at the green ring on her finger. It would probably turn her finger to match. 

After she paid and stuffed her coin purse into her bag, the lady opened the black velvet box. “Do you want a bag or would you rather wear it home?”

“Oh, I can wear it,” Charlotte said, shrugging. 

“See you soon, dear,” said the lady.

Charlotte picked up the ring and vanished.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (This story was originally written in second person present tense. I think I have changed everything to third person past, but if there are any pesky verbs or pronouns that I missed, please let me know!)

The first thought that Charlotte had was: I’m going to drown.

She was deep underwater. Deep enough that everything was murky and green around her and shadowed and dark above. But she hardly had time to panic before she shot upwards, through the water and surfaced in the middle of a little pool. She tossed her umbrella out of the water, and still cling to her to-go cup and the ring, scrambled out after it. 

She bent over and picked up her umbrella. It was slightly damp from the Glaswegian rain but otherwise, she was dry. She stared at the pool of water, puzzled. She should have been sopping wet but she wasn’t. 

“What the hell?” she muttered. She looked around, confounded.

She was standing in the middle of a thick green forest. The trees grew so closely together that their canopy blotted out the sight of the sky above. Everything was cast in shadowy green light. It was silent. The whir of the fan, the sound of the traffic, even bird songs were absent. But, as she stood there, frozen half in shock and half in wonder, she could almost imagine that she could hear the trees growing.

In between the trees lay dozens and dozens of other pools of water. They lay like mirrors on the forest floor, ringed with moss and ferns. The only thing that differentiated the pool she had climbed out of from the others was a large gash in the moss revealing a swath of rich red-brown earth.

Strangely, she wasn’t afraid. Perplexed, yes, but a mild sort of way. As if she had walked into a room and forgotten what she had come for. She stabbed her umbrella into the moss beside the dirt and started walking, wandering through the woods between the pools.

She wasn’t hungry, or thirsty, or even tired. She half forgot that she was carrying her to-go cup, bag, and camera bag. She stopped now and then to look into a pool. They were shadowed by the leafy branches overhead and it was difficult to tell how deep they were. She turned around and began to walk back towards her umbrella, but she couldn’t see it anymore. She wasn’t worried. 

On her finger, she wore two rings. One yellow and one green. 

She stopped to look at them, staring hard, trying to remember why she had them.

“Oh my goodness!” she cried, suddenly remember the old lady and the shop and the magic rings. She pulled the yellow ring off of her finger, expecting to reappear in the antique store, but nothing happened. “Now what do I do?” she asked herself, shoving the ring into the pocket of her coat.

“Perhaps I have to leave the way I arrived?” Charlotte eyed the pool in front of her. “Jump in?”

It couldn’t hurt to try.

She jumped.

She fell and fell and fell. Light blazed around her and swirling darkness swallowed it up. She saw flashes of images, shapes, and colors rushing past. Nothing that made sense. Gold and red light. A man with a star on his brow. Green and blue and mountains and then everything was gray and indistinct. 

Charlotte slipped and landed flat on her back and all was dark.

———

She wasn’t sure what work her up: the rain or the cold. Possibly a miserable combination of the two, if she was honest. She was lying flat on her back in a puddle in the middle of nowhere. She felt woozy as if she’d just been punched in the stomach. She lay there and gasped for breath as she stared at the steely gray sky above her. An unbroken cement ceiling of clouds and rain.

Charlotte groaned and rolled onto her side. She pushed herself up onto her elbows and from there managed to leverage herself upright. Her back was muddy and soaked from the puddle and her front was drenched from the rain. A chill swept through her body.

“Well, this sucks,” she muttered.

From what she could make out through the rain and the mist, the countryside around her was hilly. Shielding her eyes from the rain she looked around. A few stunted scraggles of trees clumped together at the foot of the hill she was huddled on. Ahead of her, maybe a dozen kilometers across the hills and valleys was a much larger hill. It was a bit like a pyramid in shape with a flat top. She thought she could just make out a structure or a tumble of rocks at the top.

Charlotte looked right. The hill she was on sloped away into what appeared to be an endless marsh. Between the pouring rain and the mist, it looked like the swamp stretched out to the horizon. A stream wrapped around the base of the hill and flowed into the wetland, getting lost in the brown reeds and rushes.

“Okay, time to go, this sucks.” She put her hand in her pocket to take out the yellow ring but it was gone. “This is bad. This is very, very bad.”

Charlotte crawled through the mud on the side of the hill, desperately patting the ground, searching for the ring. The longer she searched the more she felt panic rising. The ring was definitely gone. The green ring was still on her finger but she couldn’t find the yellow ring. She sat back on her heels and pressed a hand to her mouth to smother a sob. 

She needed the yellow ring to go home. She had to find it to go back to the peculiar forest and find the pool by her umbrella so she could go home. It was clear to her now that not just any pool would take her back to the antique store. It had to be the exact same pool she had first climbed out of.

“Stupid, stupid!” Charlotte said, slapping the wet grass with her hand to punctuate her words.

She got to her feet and hugged herself. She vowed to find the antique store lady and murder them.

She zipped her jacket up to her chin. The first course of action would be to follow the stream and hope to find someone. The marsh looked desolate so she decided to follow it upstream and hope for the best. She pulled up the hood of her coat. It was already as soaked as the rest of her, but at least it kept the rain out of her eyes. She tried to make out a path or a trail, anything that would make the going easier.

Above her, on the crest of the hill was a tumbled moss-covered wall and heaps of stone. Far below her, in the valley cut by the stream, she thought she could make out a narrow track following the stream and the dips and valleys between the hills. Much of it was hidden from view, but it seemed to head in the general direction of the Big Hill.

She stumbled and slid as she inched her way down the side of the hill. The grass was slippery from the rain and the bare patches of slick rock were downright treacherous. The chill in the air numbed her fingers and toes and rendered her clumsy.

Charlotte grit her teeth as she shuffled down a particularly steep stretch. Suddenly, the wet earth beneath her feet gave way and she skidded down the hill, flailing to grab anything to slow her descent. Her hands grabbed a boulder and she clung to it, coming to an ungraceful halt.

If her brothers could see her now, covered in mud, drenched with rain, clinging to a rock and swearing like a sailor they’d die laughing. Of course, she admitted, then they would help her up, dry her off and make her a cuppa.

Then she spotted a familiar camera bag snagged on a bolder some fifteen feet away. The strap of her bag tangled with the camera bag and the to-go cup tipped over beside it. 

She scooted across the steep hill face on her bottom, hoping against hope that she’d actually stuffed something useful into her bag when she left her flat that morning.

Huddled over her bags in the ran, Charlotte took stock. An insulated metal water bottle, a penknife, and torch linked together on a keyring (a present from Dad), a granola bar, a package of biscuits, her phone, a Bic lighter, pens, and a miscellaneous assortment of hair ties and bobby pins. The camera bag contained two spare batteries, a USB cable, more pens, and a take-out menu for a kebab shop in London.

She pressed the home button on her phone. No signal but at least she had a full battery. She turned it off so that it wouldn’t drain the battery searching for a signal. 

Surprisingly the to-go cup still had some tea in it. It was still warm.

She looked down at her watch. “It's really only been fifteen minutes? I hate this place.”

Charlotte drank the rest of the tea and tucked the cup into her camera bag. She shouldered both bags and continued down the hill, picking a slow, cautious path towards the track below.

To her great relief, the rain relented. The sky remained as foreboding as ever, but at least the rain stopped. 

She was exhausted by the time she reached the track.

“I’m supposed to be in good shape,” she grumbled.

There was a line of craggy boulders on either side of the track, sheltering it from the view of anyone approaching from the marsh. Charlotte sat down on one of the boulders. It was wet but so was she. She ate half of her granola bar and sipped her water.

Having eaten a little, she got to her feet and followed the creek upstream. The path wasn’t broad and often narrowed considerably, but the going was easy compared to climbing down from the hill.

As she walked, her trousers dried uncomfortably stiff against her skin. She shrugged off her jacket and carried it. At least her jumper was dry, having been protected by her jacket. Her shoes squelched with each step and after an internal debate, she stopped and removed both her shoes and socks. The ground was unpleasantly cold under her bare feet but she hoped that her shoes would dry quicker tied to her bag than on her feet.

The cloud cover was so heavy that she didn’t realize how late it had gotten until she suddenly realized it was so dark that she couldn’t see through the gloom. Time in this place, apparently, was not in sync with the time in Glasgow. 

The path had led her into a ravine and there was an outcrop of rock she thought might make a decent shelter for the night. It’s been years since she had been camping (and that had been in a rented caravan with her parents and Oliver) but she knew that she risked hypothermia if she didn’t make a fire. She used her torch to search for dry wood. To her immense relief, she found an armload of dry sticks that had been sheltered under fallen alder. 

She only half-remembered how to build a fire, but between the sticks, the take-out menu, and the lighter, she managed it.

The fire was weak and smokey but the warmth and the light were so welcomed that she thought she could melt in delight beside it. Charlotte pulled her stiff, dry socks onto her feet and pushed them as close to the fire as she dared. She sat with her back to the rock wall, her coat draped over the front of her body. She savored the other half of her granola bar and fed the fire, stick by stick until late at night it finally collapsed into a bed of glowing coals.

At some point, she must have fallen asleep. She woke up stiff and cold. She knew that she reeked of smoke and she was starving.

“But I’m not dead,” Charlotte told herself as she pulled her coat on and zipped it with clumsy, numb fingers.

Although the fire had long since burned itself out, she still buried it with dirt before shouldering her bags. Her shoes were still damp but she put them on anyway. Her feet were too cold to walk barefoot anymore. 

The morning light was weak and gray but it grew in brightness and warmth as she walked. She heard birds singing and when she looked up, she could see blue sky peeking through the clouds. The alders along the banks of the stream have tiny green leaf buds on all of their branches and the scrubby shrubs and bushes look like they have a green haze hanging between them. It was early spring here, wherever this was. 

After an hour of walking, the banks of the creek were shallow enough that she could reach the water with ease. She stopped to wash her hands and face, shivering from the icy cold. She was still muddy and there was definitely dried mud in her hair, but at least her hands and face were clean and that made a remarkable difference in her optimism levels.

The sun was shining strong and high in the sky when she reached the end of the path. The Big Hill, which had been rising up before her all morning stood before her. A bank of green grass sloped up to the base of the hill like a bridge sweeping up to the gate of a castle. She walked up the slope and found a narrow trail winding around the hill. She followed the path, climbing higher and higher. Charlotte wanted to reach the top of the hill so that she could have a good long look around. With any luck, she hoped to see buildings or at least a cellular tower. Some sign of civilization.

She’d thought her descent down the first hill the day before had been steep, but it couldn’t hold a candle to the path up the Big Hill. It was steep and rocky. She didn’t pause to take in the sights as she climbed. She bowed her head and climbed up and up. After half an hour, more or less she guessed, she reached the top of the hill. Leaning against a crumbling stone wall she paused to catch her breath.

The ancient stone wall encircled the top of the hill. A rough mound of tumbled stones, some sort of cairn, was heaped in the center of the circle. All of the stones are mossy and tall grass grew up between the gaps. Whatever had stood there had fallen a long time ago and even the ruins seemed long forgotten.

Charlotte scrambled onto one of the outer walls and sat there, looking out at the empty landscape around her. It was startlingly empty. She couldn’t see any sign of any house, highway or city in any direction—never mind a cellular tower. Grass and prairie and low undulated hills and valleys stretched out before her. In the south, along the horizon, she saw a smudge of forest and glint of what she thought might be a river. Closer to the hill she saw a road, dirt, winding through the grassland. She followed it with her eyes to the east as it snaked through the hills and grass until she lost it along a ridge in the distance. Beyond that rose far off purple-blue mountain crests. She looked west and there the road stretched along the grassland before dipping down towards the marshland she’d seen the day before. 

“Now where do I go?” she asked herself.

She sat there in silence, warmed by the bright sun overhead, considering her options. Having always been fond of mountains, she decided to walk in that direction.

She descended the summit much faster than she had climbed it. At the bottom of the hill, she paused to eat two biscuits (she had three remaining) and sip her water. Her water bottle was nearly empty so she walked back towards the path she had taken that morning. She held onto the trunk of an alder tree as she leaned down to refill it. She tucked the bottle into her bag and shouldering it and the camera bag turned and set off for the road she had seen from the top of the Big Hill.

It was farther than it looked, but the sun was warm and the clouds had all blown away. She tried to imagine she was on a hike in the highlands and not lost in a completely unfamiliar place. For a little while at least it worked. She sang a song to herself and marched forwards across the wind-beaten prairie grass towards the road.

At least she reached it. “Thank goodness,” she said. 

It had once been paved with stone but the grassland had encroached around and between the paving stones. Still, it was much easier going than cutting cross country through the tall grass. Charlotte squared her shoulders and turned east, marching towards the mountains.

She was hungry and dirty, her feet hurt but she felt hopeful. A road, even one as old and forgotten as the one she was walking on meant travelers, and travelers meant civilization.

She walked for the rest of the day, sipping sparingly from her water and fighting the urge to devour her last three biscuits. The road rose and fell with the natural slopes and dips in the land. It was as she walked out of one of those dips, in the golden-red light of the setting sun that she saw him.

A figure was stopped ahead of her, perhaps two kilometers away. They had been hidden by the swells in the land until that moment. She was so excited that she waved and shouted hello. To her surprise, they heard her from so far off. They looked up and waved a hat, beckoning her.

She picked up her pace, telling herself not to run, but walking faster than she’d walked all day. 

The figure was a man, old and gray with a tall blue hat and old fashioned looking gray robes. He was crouched by a fire, prodding it with his staff as she approached. A rucksack was sitting on the ground beside the man and the fire.

“Hi, I’m so glad to see you,” Charlotte said as soon as she was close enough that she didn’t have to shout.

“Good evening, stranger,” he said, rising to his feet.

He was impressively tall for an old man. Well over six feet tall. His face was weathered and lined but it was hard to tell how old he was. He could have been anywhere from fifty to eight years old. His eyes were blue and friendly as he smiled and gestures to his fire.

“Will you join me?” He asked. “My rations are meager but I will gladly share them with you.”

“Oh, thank you,” Charlotte said.

He produced apples, bread, and sausages from a leather bag. He handed half a loaf of bread and two of the apples to Charlotte. She sat down by the fire soaking in its beautiful warmth and devoured the food (apple core and all) while he skewered the sausages on the end of a stick and roasted them over the fire. He offered one to her and she plucked it off of the stick and ate it before it was cool. It burned her fingers and her tongue but it was the most delicious thing she’d ever eaten.

When she pulled out her water bottle he quirked an eyebrow but didn’t comment on it. He merely offered to refill it from his own waterskin. She accepted the offer and greedily gulped it down. His water was almost sweet it tasted so fresh after drinking murky creek water all day.

Finally full and her thirst stated, Charlotte leaned back, basking in the warm glow of the fire. The stranger’s fire was a proper fire. Strong and hot. And it felt delicious. 

Night had fallen all around them and above her head, the sky sparkled with stars beyond count. The old man pulled out a pipe and lit it. The scent was similar to tobacco but richer and a little sweeter. He let out a long stream of smoke and watched it curl up towards the stars.

“I don’t believe I know your name,” he said, looking away from the heavens and back at her. His eyes, even in the flickering firelight, were keen and probing.

“I’m Charlotte Williams,” she said.

“I am called Mithrandir by some,” he says.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mithrandir.” Although she had never heard the name before, the meaning seemed fitting: Gray Wanderer. 

“Now tell me, Charlotte,” he said, tapping his pipe against his lips. Although his voice was gentle there was steel and power beneath it. “Tell me how a stranger has come to this land speaking the language of the elves and wearing such peculiar garments.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Charlotte finds herself in the Wood Between Worlds at the start of this chapter. The exposed dirt in the wood is from when Polly and Diggory first arrived in "The Magician's Nephew." 
> 
> At this point in the story creation process, S still had absolutely no idea that she was in Middle Earth. I remember holding my breath when I first described Gandalf waiting for her to catch on. Nope. No hint of recognition. I want to point out that at no point did she Google anything strange that I threw at her--which I think shows remarkable restraint on her part.
> 
> Thank you for reading and see you next Saturday for chapter 3!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting a little early before the holiday. A very Merry Christmas to my readers!

Her mind went blank. She didn’t know what to say. Even to her, the truth sounded crazy and she had lived it. She looked down at the green ring on her finger. It caught the firelight and sparkled as if it were made of cut and polished emerald. She closed her hand in a fist and crossed her arms, hiding the ring from his view. 

His gaze was penetrating and she shifted uncomfortably. She didn’t even know if she could think of a convincing lie to tell him. If he thought she was insane, what would he do to her? He was old but he was by no means frail. Would he abandon her? Take her with him, wherever he was going, by force? 

Finally, and with great reluctance, she decided to tell him the truth. “I don’t really know how I got here. I was waiting for my camera lens to be repaired so I went into this shop and bought these rings. The lady said they were from the lost city of Atlantis. As soon as I touched one of them I was in this strange forest and I tried to go home but I ended up here. Over there, actually.” She pointed to the dark shadows of the hills behind her. Although she had walked quite far from them, they still loomed behind her, blotting out the stars. 

“A ring?” he said. His voice sounded idly curious but she saw that he tensed as if prepared to spring to his feet.

She uncrossed her arms and held out her right hand to him. She didn’t want to take the ring off in case she lost it like the yellow one. The ring was her only hope of getting home; it was a tether to the antique store in Glasgow.

Mithrandir did not take her hand or touch her ring, but he leaned closer. The flames of the fire burned hotter and brighter as he studied the ring. “Where did you say it was from?”

“The lady said it was from Atlantis.”

“Atalantë?” He asked, frowning.

“No, she definitely said Atlantis. But she called it something else. Um, Numerator? Numinir? Something like that.”

“Númenor,” he said. The word rolled off his tongue. Sunset-land, Westland.

“Maybe?” Charlotte said. “I really wasn’t paying too much attention.”

“Hmmm,” he said. He leaned back again and she withdrew her hand, balling it up and crossing her arms again. “I have heard of rings of power, but none that can transport the wearer from one place to another.”

“Well, you know more than I do then because I don’t know what a ring of power is.” She used her thumb to twist the ring around her finger. “I lost the yellow one. I think I need that one to go home.”

Mithrandir, pipe between his lips, inhaled deeply and pursed his lips before he exhaled a slow, steady stream of smoke.

Silence stretched between them. Despite his calm demeanor, Charlotte could tell that he was unsettled and concerned.

At least he spoke, “Tell me what happened from the moment you touched this yellow ring.”

So she told him about the pool and the forest and how she had almost forgotten how she’d come to be there. Se told him about jumping in the nearest pool and about arriving on the hill and the rain. About the night spent huddled by a weak fire in the dark and the cold and about climbing the Big Hill and deciding to walk east. She didn’t leave anything out.

“I see,” he said slowly once she finished.

“Mithrandir,” Charlotte said, “Where the fuck am I?”

He chuckled at her phrasing. “You are in Eriador.”

“I’ve never heard of Eriador,” she said. “Is it near Glasgow?”

“I am afraid it is not,” he said around his pipe.

She bit her lip impatiently as he took his time blowing a smoke ring. “Are we even on Earth?” she finally asked, unable to wait any longer.

“Earth?” he said thoughtfully. “Dirt? Soil?”

Charlotte huffed in frustration. Clearly, in this elf language the old man thought he was speaking the word ‘earth; was just another word for dirt and not the name of a place. “What’s the name of this planet?” she tried again.

“Planet?”

“This world,” she clarified.

“Ah,” he said. “This world is called Arda.”

“I’ve never heard of it. Is this the Hobbit or something?”

He gave her a peculiar look. “I do not understand your meaning.”

“Are you Dumbledore?”

At this, he laughed. “I am known by many names, but Dumbledore is not one of them.”

“So you’re not a wizard then,” Charlotte said, joking.

She swore she saw his eyes twinkling in the firelight. “I suppose I am a wizard of a sort.”

She sat up. “Really? You can do magic?”

Mithrandir shook his head with a laugh. “Conjuring cheap tricks is not my specialty.”

The two fell silent, but their silence was no longer fraught with tension. They sat in companionable silence as the fire grew dim. For the first time since she arrived on the hill, Charlotte was warm. She found herself yawning, drowsy.

“Share my fire through the night, Charlotte,” said Mithrandir. “I will keep watch.”

She nodded gratefully and laid down, using her camera bag for a pillow. Her coat made a more or less serviceable blanket. As she drifted off to sleep she vaguely wondered what he meant by keeping watch…

———

A boisterous chorus of bird song coming from the tall grass all around them woke Charlotte up in the pale light of dawn. She sat up, stiff and store, and stretched. Birds flitted and darted across a sky that promised to be clear and cloudless. The sun was still hidden behind the mountains in the east but that had not stopped the birds from singing.

Mithrandir was awake, already digging through his bags. The fire had burned down to coals but he had a kettle ticked in the ashes and Charlotte was delighted to see a tea strainer sticking out of a mug beside the fire.

“Good morning, Charlotte,” he said.

She yawned and returned his greeting. There was a chill in the early morning air and she quickly shrugged on her jacket, zipping it to her chin. She wished she had thought to grab a pair of gloves or a hat before she left for the camera repair shop.

“There is tea for you,” he said, nodding at the mug. “And here is breakfast. A repeat of dinner, I’m afraid.” He offered her more bread and an apple.

“Thanks,” she said. The tea was weak but hot. The apple and bread were as tasty and filling as the night before and she savored every bite.

As she ate he broke camp, emptying out the kettle and securing it to his rucksack.

“Where are you going?” she asked. Her hands were wrapped around the mug, soaking in as much of the warmth from the brown ceramic as possible.

He patted his horse’s neck. “I am visiting an old friend in Holbytlatun.”

“Holby..Hobily… I’ve never heard of it.” Unlike the other strange words he had shared with her the night before, she couldn’t instinctively understand the strange place name.

“Hol-byt-la-tun,” He said, gently correcting her mangled pronunciation. “And to where are you traveling?”

Charlotte shrugged. “ I don’t know. I decided to walk towards the mountains because I like mountains. The other direction looked wet. I’m done with getting wet.”

Mithrandir laughed. “The road will not pass through the swamp, but rather it skirts the edge. You are welcome to travel with me. I can promise a kind welcome, plenty of food, a warm bed, and a bath once I reach my destination.”

“A bath?” Charlotte perked up. “I’m sold. Let’s go.”

———

As they traveled Mithrandir told her stories about the lands around them. There were once, he explained, three great kingdoms of old that shared a border along the road they traveled. He told her about the Big Hill. It was called the Hill of Wind and had been built over a thousand years ago by a great king.

“What happened to it?” she asked, glancing to the hill which lay to their right, north of the road. The tumbled ruins standing on the top of the tower were all that remained of what Mithrandir had once described as a strong and mighty fortress.

“Three brothers squabbled over their father’s kingdom.” Mithrandir sighed. “The kingdom was divided into three. Divided so, they were no match for a great evil that swept through the land from the north. When the tower on the hill was destroyed there was none left to rebuild it.”

“That’s sad,” she said.

Mithrandir didn’t respond, lost in his thoughts.

Together they traveled and camped for the next four days. The distances they were covering were so vast that it was disconcerting that they hadn’t seen any hint of any human habitation. When she asked Mithrandir about this he told her about long ago wars, plagues, and famines. The whole world, the place he called Arda, seemed to be steeped in sadness and loss. A world in decline. It was sad. As if sensing her thoughts, he sang her a song about a lovely and fair garden of dreams. His voice was surprisingly clear and firm for an old man. The song was so pleasant and joyful and his tactic of changing the topic so reminiscent of Oliver that she let herself get swept away by the melody.

On the second night, they camped by a stream and after Charlotte refilled both her water bottle and his waterskin he hinted, not so subtly, that she might want to wash up a little. With burning red cheeks, Charlotte walked upstream and hid behind a bush. She peeled off her jacket and tossed it on the river bank. Her trousers and socks were brown from mud and grime and even her jumper (which had been protected by her jacket) was dirty. Her skin felt gritty and she knew that she stank. She took off her jumper, blouse, and bra and washed her face, neck, and armpits. She patted herself dry with her jacket. Then she took off her shoes and socks and washed her feet. The water was so cold it left her gasping.

Mithrandir diplomatically said nothing when she returned but she couldn’t help but notice him laughing under his breath as she joined him by the fire.

On the morning of the fourth day, as they walked up over the top of a hill they spotted the first building she had seen since they arrived. It was a stone structure just off of the road. The roof was missing but the walls were intact. The building faced a small wood and behind it, there was an orchard. The road, which sloped down to the building, was in slightly better repair and a bit wider than before.

“What’s that?” She asked him.

“The Forsaken Inn,” he said. “A hundred years ago we would have found a hot meal and a warm bed here. But alas, the inn has been abandoned for generations.”

“What happened?”

“Plague.” He doesn’t elaborate and they continued on. As they approached the inn, he starts to sing. A half mumbled half-spoken song that she couldn’t understand. “De wei giet hieltyd mear troch en troch. Under fan 'e doar wêr't it begon…“ It’s hopeful sounding though and made her smile. She found herself humming along with him as they reached the inn.

“What language is that?” she asked.

“Westron. It is the language shared by men in these parts. You can’t understand it?”

“Not a word. It kind of sounds like something Scandinavian had a baby with German or something.”

“Are those language from your world?”

“German is, but there are a couple of Scandinavian languages.”

“How many languages do they speak in your world?”

“Oh goodness, hundreds. Maybe thousands.”

Mithrandir looked surprised but also fascinated. “Do you know many of them?”

“I can get by well enough when I holiday in the south of France. And I can count to ten in Mandarin. My nephew taught me that.”

“Does he speak this Man…Mandarin?”

She shook her head. “No, but his reception class is learning a little.”

Mithrandir was confused by the term ‘reception class’ and so while they worked together to gather firewood to make camp she explained schooling. He was particularly delighted by the thought of all children, regardless of their social class, being taught to read and write. From his comments, she gathered that literacy was not as common in Arda.

“Do only the rich learn how to read here?” she asked, bending over to pick up a dry branch off of the ground near the forest edge.

Mithrandir, who was carrying several branches and sticks of his own, shook his head. “It depends on where a child lives. Many men teach their children basic letters and sums but only among the upper class and nobility of Gondor are children given a full and expansive education.”

“Only the men teach their children? What about the women?”

At this Mithrandir laughed. “The race of men, Charlotte. Tell me, are there no elves in your world?”

She thought of little Christmas elves with red and white striped stockings and red pointed caps and of the chubby garden gnomes her mother had repaired over and over again. “Not real elves. Just imaginary ones.”

“Who speaks this language with you then?” He was perplexed, his bushy eyebrows furrowed.

“Um, everyone?” She remembered that when he first met her he had called English the ‘language of the elves.’ “Are you saying that elves are real here?” 

“As real as you and I.”

Charlotte looked around on the ground and low beneath the trees as if she would spot a little fairy face poking out of the undergrowth.

“What are you looking for?” Mithrandir asked.

“Elves,” she said.

“What are the imaginary elves in your world like?” He was certainly amused with her and she didn’t know why.

Charlotte told him about Christmas elves and, for some reason, when she explained garden gnomes for him he burst out laughing. He laughed so hard he had to wipe tears from his eyes. He was still chuckling when he asked her to search the orchard to see if there were any apples that survived through the winter they could eat for supper.

Confused, and a little miffed at his laughter, Charlotte left her armload of wood beside his and headed towards the orchard.

There weren’t many apples left on the branches after winter but she found a few that weren’t too withered or rotten. Among the small spring leaves, she spied a few white blossoms. Charlotte probably hadn’t climbed a tree in a few decades but that didn’t stop her from hoisting herself into the branches to pick the flowers. They were the first thing she had seen since she arrived that was new and pure and happy.

It was while she was straddling a branch and tucking an apple blossom into her ponytail that she spotted them.

Two men in dark clothes slipping between the trees of the forest, approaching the inn. MIthrandir was distracted with the fire and didn’t seem to notice them. The men were rough-looking. Their clothes were dark green and gray. If it had been summer Charlotte knew without a doubt that she never would have noticed them. They would have stepped between the leaves and shadows and been invisible. One man had a sword at his hip. The other had a bow and quiver strapped to his back.

“This is bad,” she whispered.

Her stomach dropped and she froze, fingers digging into the bark of the branch she was perched on. She had no idea what to do. All she could think was that she was screwed—or at least Mithrandir was. 

She didn’t know if she could get his attention without alerting the men to her presence. They didn’t seem to have seen her yet. Were they robbers? She didn’t think Mithrandir had anything of value on him, but the men didn’t know that. What if they killed him? 

For the space of a heartbeat she contemplated staying hidden in the branches and running away when they were done with the old man, but she pushed that thought away. Despite his initial suspicion, Mithrandir had been nothing but kind and generous to her.

Without climbing down, she snapped one of the withered apples off of a branch and threw it as hard as she could towards Mithrandir, hoping to attract his attention. It sailed through the branches, over the stone wall, and fell silently to the ground in the grass. Neither Mithrandir nor the men seemed to even notice it.

Fear clutched her heart. The men were nearly at the forest edge. Why hadn’t Mithrandir noticed them yet? She wondered. He was signing as he lit the fire, fanning it with his pointed blue hat. Maybe if the two of them worked together they’d present more of a challenge to the ruffians. An old man might look to be an easy target, but maybe if they saw her, they would think twice about whatever it was they were planning to do.

She swung her leg over the branch and dropped to the ground and landed in a crouch. She’d taken a self-defense class once. They’d offered it when she was just an intern at the BBC. She’d learned how to break out of a hold and to go for the eyes. At least, that was all that she remembered. It had been almost fifteen years since that class. But if Mithrandir used his staff and if she could grab a burning branch out of the fire, they might have a chance.

Charlotte kept as low as possible, running bent over. She reached the stone wall and scrambled over it.

It was too late. The men were walking openly out of the woods towards the abandoned building—and Mithrandir.

“Mithrandir!” she shouted. Her voice was strangled and panicked.

He looked up with a smile and wave. “Any luck with the apples?”

“Behind you! Behind you!” She was shrieking at that point.

Mithrandir turned swiftly, his staff in hand. He laughed.

“Goede gearkomste, Halbarad, Dagoras!”

“Goede gearkomste,” said the man with the sword. He reached for Mithrandir and the two clasped hands and patted each other’s backs with a warm familiarity. Mithrandir turned and greeted the man with the bow and quiver the same way.

Charlotte skid to a halt, panting. 

“Come, Charlotte. I would like to introduce you to friends of mine,” said Mithrandir. His eyes were twinkling again and she could tell that he found the whole situation amusing.

With burning cheeks, Charlotte slunk closer, eyes on the ground. Her legs were trembling from the adrenaline rush and she was out of breath. “These are you friends?” she whispered, coming to a stop beside Mithrandir. “They were sneaking through the woods like creeps.”

“We did not sneak!” The man-with-the-sword laughs.

The man-with-the-bow laughs too. “We strolled!”

Charlotte grit her teeth, thoroughly embarrassed. She decided that she didn’t like these men.

Mithrandir, as if sensing her mood, spoke quickly to the men in the other language. His tone begins sharp but softens as he speaks. Whatever he said had an effect on the two men and they look concerned.

When Mithrandir finished speaking the man-with-the-sword gave her a small bow and said, “I am Halbarad. I am sorry to have frightened you so.”

“And I am Dagoras,” said the other man with a bow of his own.

Tall-Tower and Battle-Born. She knew what their names meant without thinking about it. Such strange names. She didn’t say this out loud, however. Instead, she awkwardly returned their bow and introduced herself.

Halbarad gave a genuine smile, his gray eyes crinkling. “Well met, Charlotte Williams.”

“Join us by our fire, friends,” said Mithrandir. “Our supplies are limited but we will share them with you with joy.” 

Charlotte glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and realized that it was the most relaxed and pleased she’d since Mithrandir since she first met him.

“Ah, we can help with that,” says Dagoras with a grin. “We snared three rabbits just this morning.” He swept his cloak aside to reveal three dead rabbits hanging off of his belt.“

“We’ve even got some potatoes and carrots,” added Halbarad. “We’ll have a proper meal in no time.”

At first, Charlotte was worried that they would make her cook (seeing as she was the woman and Arda seemed to be a strictly medieval world) but the two men do all of the preparation and cooking. She was glad. She was a decent enough cook in a modern kitchen with a recipe and Google on hand, but skinning and butcher rabbits was beyond her. Instead, Mithrandir enlisted her help to roll a fallen log over to the fire. He sat on it and patted the space next to him as an invitation.

“I am truly sorry that my friends so frightened you,” he said in a low voice, leaning towards her.

Charlotte fidgeted with the green ring on her finger, twisting it around and around. “It’s okay. They were sneaking though.”

He chuckled. “The Rangers of the Norther are known for their sneaking, I admit.” Then he sobered and added, “I am glad that your first instinct was t warn me. However, if we are in danger in the future, I ask that you run and hide. These are wild lands, Charlotte, and I fear that you are ill-equipped to deal with the threats that dwell here.”

His words sent a chill down her spine.

While Halbarad and Dagoras prepared the meal they traded jokes and barbs. Their English (or Elvish, or whatever it was that everyone was speaking) was flawless and unaccented. She wondered if it was their native language or if the strange language they were speaking to Mithrandir earlier was. She studied them while they worked. Halbarad is clearly the older of the pair (although, like with Mithrandir, it was hard to guess just how old he was). They both have steel-gray eyes, lanky dark hair, and beards. Their clothes are well worn and a bit dirty although their faces and hair were clean. Their gray-green cloaks are clasped with a seven-pointed star. They’re tall, like Mithrandir, and she wondered if Arda was populated with giants. At a respectable five-five Charlotte had never felt unusually short until she met Mithrandir and his tall friends.

The rabbits, carrots, and potatoes are turned into soup. Dagoras had a pouch of salt and Halbarad produced springs of some herb (she thought it might be thyme) from his pocket. It cooked quickly and they soon dished it out. Between the men and Mithrandir, there were only three bowls but Halbarad gave her his (and his spoon) and he sipped his soup from a mug. The soup is surprisingly good but she thought it might be because, other than Mithrandir’s sausages, it was the first hot meal she’d eaten in five days.

Mithrandir and the men fell into conversing in the other language. Charlotte strained her ears trying to pick up any familiar word. It was all babble though. An unending stream of syllables that she couldn't make heads or tails of. She finished her bowl and Dagoras refilled it with a smile, without pausing in his conversation.

By the time the noon-day sun was high, bright and warm in the sky, the soup was gone and Mithrandir and the men had switched back to English. 

Mithrandir said, “Charlotte, Halbarad, and Dagoras have offered to take you to the Shipwright. He is a wise elf who has lived years beyond measure. Perhaps he can determine how you came to this world.”

“Are you going there too?”

He shook his head. “I have business in Holbylatun that cannot be delayed. However, if you would like to continue with me, my promise of a warm welcome in the home of Maura Labingi still holds true.”

“So it’s up to me?” she asked.

Mithrandir nodded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did S choose? Does Charlotte continue on with Gandalf to Hobbiton or does she agree to travel to see Cirdan the Shipwright?
> 
> Tolkien used Old English for Rohirric and in the books, there's a linguistic connection between the language of Rohan and the hobbits. I decided to use Frisian as my stand-in for Westron. Frisian is mutually intelligible to Old English. I just used Google Translate so there may be many, many errors in the grammar! Additionally, because I equated Sindarin to English, Charlotte understands the literal meaning of (new to her) Sindarin words. Weathertop literally means Hill of Wind; Númenor literally means Sunset Land. Similarly, Gandalf understands the literal mean of English words like "earth" but doesn't understand that it references a planet and not dirt.
> 
> I played this same writing/choosing game with my brother in addition to S. For the most part they made parallel choices, but with some (to me) amusing differences. For instance, when my brother saw Halbarad and Dagoras approaching Mithrandir, he picked up a branch and charged out of the orchard yelling at them. He was also less suspicious than S, haha!
> 
> In my original version of this (and several other future) chapters there was a lot more expository world-building. S still didn't know she was in Middle Earth and she had a lot of questions for the various characters. I consolidated or cut a lot of this out of the story as I prepared to publish it here. I left in questions and explanations that seemed realistic to the story but also kept in mind that my readers are already familiar with the world of Middle Earth. I also left in any questions that I thought were too funny to cut out.


	4. Chapter 4

The new guys freaked her out.

“I’ll travel with you, Mithrandir. If that’s alright,” she said.

Mithrandir’s smile was kind. “It would be an honor to continue our journey together. Perhaps by chance, or perhaps not, but our paths have crossed and it seems we are to be traveling companions for the time being.”

“Once your business in Holbytlatun is finished,” said Halbarad, “Perhaps we can take her to Imladris. If the answers are not to be found with the Shipwright, then they might be there.”

“Hmm,” said Mithrandir contemplatively. He took out his pipe and lit it.

Dagoras headed off to the stream to fetch water for washing up and Halbarad took out a pipe of his own (a plain, simple one) and he and Mithrandir exchanged smoke rings and idle chatter.

This was the longest she’d sat in days and she stretched out her legs, letting her coat fall down from her shoulders and enjoying the warm sun. She kept a wary eye on the two men, however. She wondered how long it would take to get to Holbytlatun and if this Marua fellow would have a bath waiting for her. How did baths in medieval times work anyway?

When Dagoras returned he struck up a conversation with her. “Tell me about your home, Charlotte.”

“Um, well I just moved to a city called Glasgow,” she said. She wasn’t sure how to describe her life. She decided to keep things as simple as possible. “I have my own flat now, er, home? I live in a big building with many different homes inside of it.”

“I have never seen a city of men before,” said Dagoras.

“No? Mithrandir said you were a Ranger. What’s that?”

He paused, apparently struggling just as much as she was to describe his life. “We guard these lands. We protect it from evil creatures such as wolves and yrch and the like. Many years ago our ancestor was the king of all of these lands. The kingdom was divided and much of it has fallen and been forgotten, but we remember. We uphold our duty.”

“Mithrandir told me a little about it,” she said. “I just didn’t realize there was anyone left still. This land is so empty.”

At this Halbarad spoke up. “Here it is empty, that is true, but continue west and soon you will find villages, farms, home, and people.”

“It is they who we guard,” added Dagoras.

The two Rangers spent the rest of the afternoon and the night with Charlotte and Mithrandir. As darkness fell she made a little bed with her bags and coat between the wall and Mithrandir. The men might not be thieves but she felt a little safer with Mithrandir between them. 

They talked with Mithrandir late into the night. Curled up on her side, Charlotte reached under her shirt and withdrew the locket. She’d been wearing it ever since she put it on outside of Euston station. She’d been trying not to think about it. Thinking about Thomas and Amelia made her throat ache with tears. She rolled the plastic beads between her fingers and brought it to her lips and pressed a kiss against the metal pendant. She couldn’t bring herself to open it. She knew that if she saw their picture, their little faces, she would be undone.

She fell asleep that night, clutching the locket in her fist.

The men made breakfast the next morning before the sun rose and shared with them. Then, as the first sunlight spilled over the eastern sky they bid them both farewell.

“Farwol, farewell,” they said with bows.

Mithrandir clasped Halbarad’s hand and said, “Halbarad, fertel Aragorn my oer in moanne tiid te treffen by Sarn-oerstek. Ik bin bang dat ik fierder ljocht sil kinne werjaan oer de saken dy't ús oangeane.”

Halbarad’s face was grim and Dagoras looked stricken with worry.

“Ik sil it berjocht oerbringe, Mithrandir,” replied Halbarad in a low, tight voice.

“Farewell, Charlotte,” said Dagoras. “I hope we will meet again. I would like to hear more of your city.”

Then they turned and melted back into the woods.

“They’re sneaking. Right now they are sneaking,” she whispered to Mithrandir.

———

Mithrandir was eager to get back on the road and Charlotte helped him break camp. They stomped out the coals of the fire and buried it. He kicked the log back towards the woods and she made sure their water was refilled from the creek. 

The road was now wide enough that they could walk side by side with ease. A kilometer past the inn the road turned into the woods. It was cool and shaded. Charlotte zipped her coat up to her chin.

“Dagoras said that he and Halbarad are protecting people. He said that they’re guarding this place… from what?” Charlotte asked after they’d been walking for about twenty minutes.

Mithrandir considered her question before responding. “There is great evil in this world, Charlotte,” he said at last.

“Tell me about it,” she muttered.

His smile is sad. “Evil dwells in the hearts of some men and manifests in the workds of their hands, in the beast of nature and in other created beings.”

“Other created beings?” What do you mean?“

He leaned on his staff as he walked. Suddenly he looked old. Old and very weary. “Dagoras mentioned yrch to you yesterday did he not? What do you know of them.”

“Nothing.” Charlotte shook her head. “Are they some kind of animal?” The word yrch was both foreign and familiar to her. It was not from the same language that Mithrandir spoke with the Rangers; it was English but not. It must be elvish then, she supposed. In the same way that Mithrandir had stumbled over the word ‘Earth.’ It was like hearing a vocabulary word in primary school she had never seen before.

Mithrandir sighed. “They are not animals but nor are they men—at least not anymore.”

That is all he would stay on the matter and the conversation ended there. It was hard for Charlotte to shake the foreboding feeling that swept over her.

As they walked, she noticed a change in the landscape. The woods gave way to pockets of meadows and then, after a few more kilometers they came upon meadows ringed with neat stone walls and sheep grazing. Here and there were stone cottages with thatched roofs. There were bare fields turned over by plows, and chicken coops and barns. Dirt paths crossed the old stone road and she spotted people at work on their farms.

Mithrandir raised his staff in greeting as they passed a farmer driving a wagon loaded with what smelled like manure.

“Goeie, Wand-elf,” said the farmer. He gave Charlotte a strange look and did not greet her.

“The people here do not travel overmuch,” said Mithrandir after they walked away from the farmer. “They are good folk but suspicious of strangers and you are very much strange.”

Charlotte looked down at her dirty clothes and frowned.

“Fear not, there will be a bath in the inn tonight. We are not far. We’ll reach it before the afternoon has passed.”

Ahead she saw a little village built along (and into) a steep hillside. The road curved in front of the village and continued down into a valley towards another hill in the distance. The far hill was surrounded by a high green hedge and had a village of its own sitting on its crest. There were an awful lot of children bustling about the village as they approached. Some were pushing charts, others chopping wood, some were hanging laundry.

Charlotte smiled at one of the children and then gasped in shock. It wasn’t a child, but a fully grown adult woman. She gave charlotte a funny look before returning to her sweeping.

“Mithrandir, what is this place?” she asked.

“This is Staddle. A very old town indeed.” He nodded in greeting to a short, stout little man who was digging in his front garden.

Charlotte openly stared in curiosity and wonder as they passed through the town of Staddle. On the right-hand side of the road, where the road hugged the base of the hill, where little doors and windows in the very hillside itself. A switchback road ran up the face of the hill leading to more little doors and windows higher up. The dwellings on the left side of the road consisted of low stone buildings with turf roofs. Sloping away from the hill on the left lay neat fields where petite farmers turned over the rich dark soil. And everyone was small.

The children in particular were startling in their diminutive size. A gaggle of boys no taller than her knees raced past them on the street, giggling and laughing. Strangely, despite their small size, their voices were no higher pitched than those belonging to typically sized children. They were like tiny pixies. She had a sudden urge to scoop one up and coo at it.

“What are they?” Charlotte asked before she could think better of the question. As soon as it was out of her mouth she knew it was rude.

Mithrandir, thankfully, didn’t comment on her rudeness. “They are a people called periannath by the elves. Men call them kuduk but they call themselves holbytla.”

“Periain,” Charlotte said. Like the work yrch it was familiar and exotic all at the same time. Halfling was the closest directly English approximation she could think of. They were half the size of men and the ‘ling’ brought to mind ducklings or goslings. Cute little baby animals and children. It was a bit of an insulting name, she thought and then remembered her own instinct to pick up a little child as if it were an object and felt embarrassed.

Past Staddle they continued on the road towards the larger town on the hill a few kilometers away. She guessed that there were perhaps a hundred stone houses nestled on the slopes of the hill. A thick, high hedge ran around the base of the hill with a steep dike on the outside of the hedge. Ahead of them was a gap in the hedge where the road passed through. A wooden bridge spanned the gap and the gates were thrown open, welcoming them inside.

Mithrandir led the way over the bridge, through the gate in the hedge, and into the town.

The inhabitants of the town were a curious mixture of normal-sized humans and miniature halflings. Charlotte saw a tiny halfling woman talking to a normal-sized woman over a garden fence. The halfling was standing on top of her laundry basket, bouncing the smallest baby Charlotte had ever seen on her hip. As she and Mithrandir passed they looked up from their conversation and stared at them openly.

They rounded the bottom of the hill and Mithrandir pointed at a three-story building at the side of the road. It had two wings stretching behind it. One of the wings was partially cut into the hillside with round little windows on the ground level. There was an archway between the wings that lead into a courtyard between them. Mithrandir made for the archway.

“Welcome to It Springende Hynder, the, uh,” here he pauses as if trying to think of the proper translation, “The Dancing Little Horse.”

“I don’t care what it’s called as long as there’s a bath,” Charlotte declared.

Mithrandir laughed loudly and pat her on the shoulder. “I can promise you that.”

“Is this your friend’s house?”

“No, we still have several days of travel before we reach his home. But let us find a hot meal and a warm bath.”

Inside the main room is mostly empty. A few short, stocky men with beards are drinking in the corner. A red faced man (normal-sized, she noted) hurried over.

He greeted Mithrandir warmly and turned to Charlotte and said, “Koarnman Bûterbur, ta jo tsjinst.”

“Uh, hello? I’m Charlotte.”

“Mithrandir and the man (Koarnman?) exchanged a few words and then he pointed them towards a table by the window. He shouted a few orders to two halflings who had been busy cleaning and they darted off in different directions.

“I have asked Mr. Bûterbur to bring us some dinner and to make arrangements for a bath. He says that he will also procure some fresh clothes for you as well.”

Charlotte thought of her purse and the few notes she had. She doubted that her credit cards would do much good. “Um, Mithrandir? I don’t know how to pay for any of this. The money in my world is different.”

He brushed off her concern and assured her that all would be taken care of. Charlotte thanked him profusely.

At the table, Charlotte sat facing the window she could watch the goings on in the street. She couldn’t help but stare at medieval looking cottages and all of the people with avid interest. It felt surreal. It was like she had stumbled onto a film set. She wished she had one of her cameras to take some photographs. The late afternoon light was perfect. 

At the sound of dishes being set down on the table, she looked over. One of the halflings was carrying a laden tray that was almost as big as he was. She gaped at the amount of food he set down in front of them. Soup, cuts of cold ham and beef, fresh bread with a large crock of butter, a quarter of a wheel of hard crumbling cheese, jam tarts, and two tall tankards. 

“Dankewol, Nob,” said Mithrandir. He shook out a napkin and tucks it into his robes and threw his long beard over his shoulder. 

For the next fifteen minutes, Charlotte and Mithrandir ate in silence. She ate until she felt stuffed and then leaned back and sighed contentedly. 

After they finished eating a teenage girl approached the table and beckoned Charlotte to follow her. Mithrandir shooed her away. Charlotte followed the girl up a flight of stairs and down a hallway to a cozy little room overlooking the courtyard. There was a steaming wooden tub in the center of the room, a bar of gray-white soap, a woven towel, and what appeared to be a change of clothes on the bed. The girl pointed at everything and talked a mile a minute in her language before giving her a sunny smile and leaving Charlotte to her bath.

Charlotte hurried to strip out of her clothes and climb into the tub. It wasn’t very big but it was deep and if she sat with her knees bent, the water reached to her chin.

She didn't even bother to get fully dressed when she was done with her bath. She dried off and put on what looked like a long white nightgown. From reading Outlander she guessed it was a chemise. Beneath that she on a pair of white bloomers (which were shockingly open at the crotch). The bed looked so inviting and cozy that Charlotte shoved the rest of the clothes down to the foot of the bed and collapsed on top of the covers, her wet hair fanning across the pillow. She fell asleep almost at once and hardly stirred when the girl returned to empty the tub.

It was dark when she woke up and her room was dark. The empty tub was still in the room, but the damp towel and her dirty clothes were gone. Reassuringly, her camera bag and bag were still sitting beside the door where she had left them. On the table, there was a scrap of paper with a note. She carried it to the window to read in the fading light. 

She could read it even though the script it was written in was one she had never seen. Round curves and straight lines with accents and dots here and there. It was signed with a rune that she couldn’t read but the strangely written script said, “Join me in the dining room when you awaken.” 

The note, she thought, must be from Mithrandir and the rounded alphabet must be the way the elves write. It was pretty. Charlotte wondered if she could write it or only just read it.

She put the paper on the table. There was a candle there and a few matches. She lit it (it only took two matches) and set about getting dressed in the dim, flickering light.

The dress was relatively easy to figure out. It had no buttons or zips but it fit over her head. The length is perfect but the dress was made for a broader, stouter woman. She cinched the belt at the waist and tried to gather the rust-colored fabric tighter. There was a head covering and a number of straight pins. After no less than five failed attempts to secure it, she gave up and tossed it onto the bed. She dug a hair elastic out of her bag and finger combed her hair back into a ponytail. There were two yellow ribbons and she tied on around the elastic.

“Good enough,” she told herself.

There were also leather shoes and woolen stockings. She was surprised to find that the shoes fit well. The stockings only pulled up to her knees. There was no elastic in the stocking and the started sliding down almost as soon as she stood up. She hiked up her skirts to tug them higher. Perhaps she’d accidentally been given stockings meant for a halfling?

Dressed, at last, she blew out the candle and groped her way in the dark to the door. She hadn’t realized how dark it had become while she was getting dressed. 

The corridor outside is even darker than her room. As she shuffled along she cursed herself for not bringing the candle with her. There was a warm glow of light coming up the stairwell that she used to navigate. The sound of chatter and laughter floated up from the dining room below.

The stairs led directly to the dining room. It was full of people. Normal sized people, halflings, and stocky bearded men that were smaller than a typical adult but taller than the halflings. The room was lively and full of conversation. The innkeeper and his two halfling employees were bustling to and fro keeping tankards refilled and dishing out steaming plates of food.

She spotted Mithrandir at the same table where they had eaten earlier. He was talking and laughing with two of the stocky bearded men. The table was covered with various dishes and plates of food and Charlotte hurried over, already hungry again. Mithrandir patted the back of the chair next to him and she sat down, smiling in greeting.

“Thruth son of Thean and Gerlum son of Geas,” he said, introducing the men.

The men bowed and said, “Ta jo tsjinst.”

“Uh, hello there,” she said. 

“Charlotte does not speak Westron,” Mithrandir explained to Gerlum. 

“My apologies, my lady,” said Gerlum with a bow. “I am afraid that my own knowledge of the elfin tongue is poor. “

His speech was flawless and eloquent and she told him so.

He threw back his head and laughed. “You are a strange elf, but perhaps that is why you are so polite!”

He and Thruth said goodbye to Mithrandir and bowed to Charlotte again. Their smiles are warm and friendly and you return them easily.

Charlotte helped herself to a slice of steak and kidney pie and said, “Mithrandir, can I ask you some questions?”

“Hmmm?” he said, leaning back in his chair. He had produced his pipe after talking to the Gerlum and Thruth and was chewing on the stem.

Despite the noise in the room, in the window alcove, the sound was muffled enough that they could carry on a normal conversation without being drowned out by the din.

“What’s up with the word halfling?”

Mithrandir laughed.

“It’s not a very respectful name, you know,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

Mithrandir glanced at Gerlum and Thruth and leaned over the table and whispered, “It could be worse, you could be called Naugrim.”

“The Stunted People?” Charlotte sputtered into her tankard. “Yikes!”

“The elves are many things,” said Mithrandir, “But subtle is not one of them.”

“No kidding.”

Charlotte took another bite of her pie and then asked, “Why did Gerlum and Truth think I was an elf?”

“Thruth,” he said, emphasizing the correct pronunciation, “And his companion have never met an elf before. When presented with a fair face speaking Sindarin they drew what seems to be the most logical conclusion.”

“Sindarin? Is that the language the elves speak?”

He nodded.

“Why can I speak it? It’s not the same as English, at least, I don’t think so. There are some words you use that I don’t understand at all.” She thought of the word yrch.

“I cannot answer that question,” he said, thoughtful. “Perhaps after we pay a visit to Maura, we could travel next to the head of my order. He is wised and learned in many things.”

Charlotte looked at the ring on her right hand and twisted it around her finger. She hadn’t taken it off since she arrived. She slipped it off and listened intently. The buzz of chatter around the room remained the same. Experimentally, she asked Mithrandir, “Why are some people so tall, and some people so small and other people just...normal sized?”

“You ask a more complicated question than you realize, Charlotte,” Mithrandir said.

The ring wasn’t magically translating then, she thought to herself. She put it back on so she wouldn’t lose it.

Although his gaze never left her hands, Mithrandir continued speaking, “Halbarad and Dagoras are tall men because thousands of years ago their ancestors were blessed with their tall stature and long lives by the Valar.”

“Angelic guardians?” Once again she somehow keow what the word “vala” meant without having to think about it.

He noded. 

“Like gods?”

“No, no,” he said quickly. “They are not gods. They are the offspring of The One’s thought.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“There are few men now who have learned of these things,” he said. 

“Okay, so the sneaky guys got to be tall because the Valar made them tall?” When Mithrandir nodded she continued, “Did the Valar make the halflings short?”

Mithrandir shrugged. “The origins of the halflings are shrouded in mystery. I have traced them back some few hundred years to a time when they lived in the Vales of Anduin in Wilderland, but perhaps their lineage stretches back to the Eldar days. Who can say?”

“So they’re humans?”

“They are men,” he confirmed.

“And the guys with the beards? The Naugrim? Are they men, too?”

“They are not, and I believe you would lose your good favor in their sight if you suggested it to their face,” Mithrandir said. He smiled. “They are the children of the Smith. The One granted them life and adopted them as his children but they are not counted among the First or Second-born children of The One.”

Charlotte rubbed her temples. “This is getting confusing.”

“Would you like a diagram?” asked Mithrandir.

She knew he was joking, but she took him up on the offer of a diagram anyway. With a good natured smile, he pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket and a stubby pencil and started writing. While Mithrandir is working on the diagram, one of the halflings, Nobb, she thought, cleared away her empty plate and sets down a plate of cheese and rhubarb and strawberry tarts. He returned a few minutes later with a hot pot of tea and two teacups.

Finished with his diagram, Mithrandir handed it to her. He’d drawn a little thinking man in the center of the paper and written down all of the names he had said earlier. Charlotte could read it without any difficulty but she still felt a little confused by all of the names and the strange relationships between all of the groups. 

“Thanks,” she said, to be polite.

“At first light, we will set out for the home of Maura Labingi.”

“How far away is it?” you ask.

“Only some one hundred and twenty miles,” he said calmly.

“What?!”

“Perhaps forty hours of walking at a good pace,” he said. “We should reach his home, Labin-nec, in four days' time.”

She looked under the table at her lightweight leather shoes. “I hope I get my own shoes back.”

After she finished her dessert (two slices of cheese and one of the tarts) she excused herself and went back to her room. If she had four more days of walking ahead of her, she wanted to set off as well rested as possible. The bed was stuffed with feathers and so deliciously soft that she found herself falling asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. Something was niggling at the back of her mind but she forgot all about it as she drifted off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had been writing this story for S for a couple of weeks at this point back in April. I thought that she would certainly realize where she was when they saw hobbits. She did not. Then I thought that the Prancing Pony would be a dead give-away. It was not. I promise that she does, eventually, figure out what is going on!
> 
> The locket from Thomas and Amelia is an addition to the story that I made when I rewrote it. Before I started rewriting, S and I really fleshed out Charlotte's backstory together. Thomas and Amelia are actually based on my children to whom S is a beloved honorary aunt. Charlotte isn't the sort of character who is comfortable being emotional in front of other people and by refusing to open the locket and look at her niece and nephew's picture, she's refusing to allow herself to be vulnerable in front of people she doesn't know well. Keep an eye out for when she does open her locket and who she is with at the time in future chapters!
> 
> I'm 16 chapters into the rewrite (which means I will, for sure, have twelve more chapters for you, my readers here). Once my rewrite catches up to where S and I left off, she and I will forge ahead. My hope is that she and I can keep a nice buffer between where the story is here and where we are in our back and forth.
> 
> A very sincere thank you to each and every reader! See you next week!
> 
> Westron/Frisian Translations*:
> 
> "Halbarad, tell Aragorn to meet me at Sarn Crossing in about a month. I'm afraid I'll be able to shed further light on the issues that concern us."
> 
> "I will convey the message, Mithrandir"
> 
> "At your service"
> 
> *take Frisian accuracy with a shaker full of salt


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally finished editing everything I have already written for S--20 chapters in total! To celebrate here's a bonus for this week chapter, enjoy!

She was woken up at dawn when the teenage girl entered her room with a steaming pitcher of water in one hand and holding a basket with Charlotte's old clothes on her hip.

“Goeie moarn,” she said with a smile. 

“Good morning.” Charlotte yawned and rubbed her eyes.

The girl set the basket at the foot of the bed and put the pitcher on the table next to a washbasin. Charlotte had been too tired the night before to notice that the bath had been removed from her room.

She touched her chest and said, “Charlotte.”

The girl grinned. She touched her own chest and said, “Maisblom.”

“Maisblom? That’s a pretty name.”

She smiled, although Charlotte doubted she understood anything she said except for her own name. Handing Charlotte a note, she curtsied and hurried out of the room.

The note was from Mithrandir. He wrote to have breakfast in the dining room without him. He had some business to attend to but planned to set out at nine.

Charlotte smiled to herself. That would give her plenty of time to explore the town. She realized that she never actually asked what this town was called. She only knew the name of the village with all of the halflings was called Staddle.

Her clothes were neatly folded in the basket and her shoes were sitting on top having been brushed clean. She fished out her underwear from the stack of folded clothes and put them on. Her bra and socks as well. Next, she put her trainers on and lace them up. If she was going to be walking 120 miles she was going to do it in shoes that she knew were comfortable. 

She considered putting the rest of her modern clothes on, but she worried that she would stand out too much. She stuffed her trousers and blouse into her camera bag. They just fit. The wool stockings, the ones that had continuously slipped down the night before, joined them in the bag. The rest of her new outfit she put on: chemise, bloomers, dress, and belt. Over this, she pulled her jumper. Her coat was next. There was no room for the leather shoes and after some debate about whether or not to leave them behind, she put them into her bag. Now her bag and her camera bag were both full but she was glad there was space enough for everything. 

After washing her face using the pitcher of water on the table she decided to find breakfast in the dining room and then explore as much of the town as she could before it was time to leave. She didn’t know what to do with her bags, so she carried them down with her.

Maisblom was in the dining room serving breakfast to Gerlum and Thruth. The two dwarves smiled and nodded in her direction. Charlotte sat down in the same window alcove. Maisbloom brought her a pot of tea and a cup before scurrying off in the direction of the kitchen.

Breakfast was as hearty, filling, and delicious as all of the meals she’d eaten at the inn. Two soft boiled eggs, crusty toasted bread with butter and strawberry preserves, and a thick cut rasher of bacon. She was certain that after the past week of walking through the wilderness with Mithrandir that she would never take a hot meal for granted again. 

After breakfast, she thanked Maisblom (who, even though she couldn’t understand a word that Charlotte said, seemed appreciative) and headed out of the inn.

The streets of the city were compacted dirt and gravel, and the buildings open up onto the street. Most were built of stone on the first floor with timber-framed second and third stories with wattle and daub panels between the dark wood frames. The windows had glass in them and many were open with the shutters thrown back. The roofs were either tiled or thatched with a few stout chimneys poking up above the roofline.

The streets were busy with people, carts, oxen, and horses of all sizes. Charlotte jumped back to let a fat halfling farmer and his little cart pulled by a pony pass. 

She got fewer stares now that her clothes didn’t stand out but there were occasional glances her way. She walked down the street, taking in as much as she could. Between the houses, she spotted little fenced-in gardens and sheds. It seemed like every house had at least one cow and some chickens. Many houses also had a pig.

She recognized some of the businesses and shops. There was a baker and a greengrocer next to each other and three houses down, on the corner, there was a blacksmith. Next to the blacksmith was a carpenter and across the street was a tailor. 

Charlotte longed for her camera. The morning light was slanted and still low. Dew lay on the grass in golden beads and there was a crispness to the air that only comes in early spring. There were so many fascinating people; so many stories that she could tell in a single frame. She stopped and watched the blacksmith. The shafts of light hung in the smoke of the forge and the wide-open door of his workshop provided a natural frame to the tableau. If she had her camera she would have brought him into sharp focus and let the background of the workshop and the glow of the forge melt into an indistinct haze.

At last, she pulled herself away and turned to go back to the inn. She didn’t know the time, but she guessed that the morning was passing quickly. On the way, she stopped to look at the bread, cakes, and pies that the baker was setting out on a table just inside his shop. Charlotte reached into her bag and felt around for her purse. She knew she had a few pounds in coins. Perhaps the baker would be willing to take a strange coin in exchange for a few of the sweet rolls he had just set down on the table.

She pointed at the rolls and mimed eating and then held out a two-pound coin. He plucked it from her hand and turned it over. He tried to pull off the outer ring. Then he bit it. Satisfied that it was a singular, solid piece, he puts it in his pocket and fills a basket with all of the sweet rolls on the table. All of them!

“Thank you,” Charlotte said, overwhelmed by her sudden acquisition of at least four dozen gooey confections.

He bowed and said, “No, frou, ik moat jo tankje.”

“Oh, well, thank you again,” Charlotte said, clueless as to what he meant.

Basket filled with baked goods over her arm, Charlotte returned to the inn where she found Mithrandir talking to Mr. Bûterbur in the courtyard.

“Ah, there she is now,” says Mithrandir.

“I’m so sorry!” Charlotte said breaking into a run. “Am I late?”

“Not at all, my dear,” said Mithrandir, “In fact, you are twenty minutes early. It is just as well, however, for we can set off at once.”

“Did you enjoy exploring the town, Charlotte?” Mithrandir asked, eyeing the basket.

“I accidentally bought the entire stock of sweet rolls, um… do you want one?”

He chuckled and pulled one out of the basket. Charlotte took one for herself and then gave the basket to Mr. Bûterbur. “Can you tell him that they’re for him? And thank him for the dress and the bath?”

Mithrandir did as she asked and the innkeeper beamed and said a number of very kind sounding things which Mithrandir declined to translate. Then they both said farewell to Mr. Bûterbur and headed out of the inn. Mithrandir greeted the townspeople as they walked through towards the hedge around the other side of the hill. Most people seemed to know him, but they don’t call him by the name Mithrandir. They call him Wand-elf.

“Why don’t they call you Mithrandir?” She asked they stepped through the open gate in the hedge and crossed over the dyke on a wooden bridge.

“I have many names in many places,” he said. “To the elves I am Mithrandir. Others call me the Grey Pilgrim. The Naugrim call me Tharkûn. Here in Bree I am Wand-elf.” She caught a glint of the ring on his finger, sparkling in the sunlight.

“Wand-elf?” The name, silly as it sounds, has a familiar sound to it.

“Though the elves often visit their kindred in the Grey Havens, they do not take the Road. To the men and halflings of this part of the world, I may as well be an elf for all they can fathom.”

“Do they think I’m an elf--like Gerlum and Thruth did?”

He chuckled. “Maisblom seems to think so.”

There were no more villages or towns, but for the next hour or two, the land was cultivated and dotted with fields, pastures, and farms. Then the road turned south and ran along a thick and ancient-looking forest and all signs of human habitation fell behind them.

“This forest is huge,” Charlotte said peering as deeply into it as she could. There was a stone fence along the road that seems to be only barely holding the forest back. Despite the lack of leaves, it was a dark and foreboding place.

“It is all that remains of a once greater, more ancient forest that once covered this whole region and stretched far to the south.”

“What happened to it?”

“Men have lived here for generations beyond count, spreading, and building.”

She was glad that Mithrandir was walking on the forest-side of the road. “I don’t think the forest likes humans.”

Solemnly Mithrandir said, “I believe you are right.”

It was late afternoon when Charlotte and Mithrandir made camp for the night. She was grateful that Mithrandir set up camp on the meadow side and not the forest side of the road. She noted that he gathered sticks and bracken from the meadow side of the road and didn’t approach the forest looking for firewood. The weather was warm and the skies were clear. Mr. Bûterbur had seen to restocking all of Mithrandir’s provisions and there was plenty of tasty food for supper. 

After they ate, Mithrandir told her a story about a man who came across a beautiful elf-maid dancing in the woods and fell in love with her. Charlotte fell asleep listening to the sing-song words of his poem.

The next day passed just as pleasantly as the day before. Mithrandir kept himself between Charlotte and the forest and he told her more stories about elves and their great deeds. She especially liked the story about the hidden city and the brave elf-warrior who fought off a fire demon to save the lives of the fleeing civilians. 

“So thanks to him everyone got away?” she asked.

Mithrandir nodded. “Many lives were saved that day--including the life of the princess and her young son. If they had not lived, alas, the story of this world would be much altered.”

“What did you say the elf-warrior was called?”

“Glorfindel of the House of the Golden Flower.”

Goldilocks, Charlotte fought a smile. The names of elves were both amusingly literal but at the same time beautiful. The elf-maid in the story he had told her the night before was named “Daughter of Flowers” but somehow “Luthien” conveyed so much more than the literal meaning.

Instead of stopping to camp in the afternoon, Mithrandir pressed on. He wanted to cross the Golden-Brown River (the Baranduin) before making camp. 

Charlotte heard the river before she saw it. It was rushing past its banks, swollen from spring rain and snowmelt. A red stone bridge with several arches spanned the river and on the far banks, she saw fields and stone fences. Civilization, it seemed, had returned.

A halfling was fishing on the far bank of the river, wearing a straw hat with his bare feet dangling in the water. Mithrandir waved as they cross the bridge. The halfling gave a wave and a smile.

“That is a young Brandagamba,” said Mithrandir. “Most of the Brandagamba live ten miles south on the east side of the bridge but they are like rabbits,” he laughed, “There’s always one or three new Brandagamba babies whenever I pass through. A good family. Very friendly and welcoming.”

Mithrandir called down to the Brandagamba who shouted back a response back before jumping to his feet and scurrying across the field, his fishing pole bouncing on his shoulder.

“He’s gone to tell his mother that we are passing through. She’ll be sure to send us out some hot food for supper.”

A hot supper sounded delicious and Charlotte grinned in reply.

Sure enough, a kilometer down the road, when she and Mithrandir made camp beside a towering oak tree, the Brandagamba returned with two baskets laden with food: bread, crocks of hot stew, pies, cheese, and apples. Mithrandir carried on a lively conversation with the boy who seemed perfectly delighted to have the attention and approval of the old man. The boy bowed to Charlotte and then, having delivered the food, darted back down the road.

“He said to repack the baskets with the empty dishes and he’ll bring them up to his mother in the morning.” 

The next morning Mithrandir was eager to get going. It was the third day of their four-day trip to his friend’s house and she could tell that he was impatient to arrive. 

“We’ll head to the inn at Frogmorten for the night,” Mithrandir said. He took the baskets (which Charlotte had repacked after breakfast) and set them at the base of the oak. “The beds are short but the food and beer are good.”

On the west side of the Baranduin River, the halflings didn’t live in houses like the halflings in Bree but in houses cut into the hillsides like the ones in Staddle. The houses faced the road and had large circular doors and round windows and tall grass grows all around them. 

At midday, they passed through the town of Whitfurrows and Charlotte and Mithrandir picnicked on a hill overlooking the town. 

“Do only halflings live here?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Mithrandir. “And though they do not know it, the Rangers guard their borders and protect them.”

“From normal-sized men?”

“Indeed. This is a quiet and unspoiled part of the world that has largely gone unnoticed by the great powers of this world. I would that it remain this way.”

After lunch, they continued on their way. Frogmorten was bigger than Whitfurrows but not by much. As Mithrandir promised, the beds were indeed short but the food was good. Charlotte didn’t mind the short bed. She curled up and slept well, happy to be sleeping in a bed and not in a field.

Morning found Mithrandir whistling cheerfully. “We shall arrive at Labin-nec in time for supper.” He was delighted. “A full supper spread as the guest of a halfling is not to be missed.”

The countryside was fairly bustling as they followed the road west of Frogmorten. There were stretches of woods and meadows but in between them were rolling fields (tilled by plows pulled by sturdy little ponies), pastures (dotted with white sheep or brown and white spotted cows), and many little houses with brightly painted round doors set in the hills. 

Mithrandir told her a story about a brave little halfling named Bilba who traveled to the far east in the company of thirteen dwarves and slayed a dragon. She felt like she’d heard this story before but she couldn’t quite place it.

The late afternoon sun was low in the sky when they finally turned off of the main road and begin to climb a large, low hill. An oak tree stood at the top of the hill and there were houses cut into the hill along the road. Mithrandir passed these without slowing and continued to climb the hill as the road wrapped around it. And there, at the top of the hill, looking over a river in the valley below was a large garden, prepared for spring planting and a round green door with a brass knob in the center.

“Welcome, Charlotte, to Labin-nec, the home of Maura Labingi,” says Mithrandir.

———

Maura was a plump, middle-aged halfling with thick sandy brown curls and very red cheeks. He also (to her eternal relief) spoke Sindarin as well as Mithrandir although his accent reminded her of an old fashioned BBC radio host. He greeted her warmly and invited both of them into his home. 

“We call it a smial,” he explained as he took her bags and Mithrandir’s staff in the front hall. 

The hall (and indeed all of the rooms and corridors) was just as round as the front door. If Charlotte kept to the very center of the room she could stand without stooping--she just had to duck the hanging lamps. Mithrandir almost knocked into one, but he caught himself in time. He shook a finger at the lamp before following Maura into the parlor. 

“All well, eh?” asked Mithrandir, sitting on a stool in the parlor. “You look the same as ever, Maura!”

Charlotte sat next to him on a chair. Perched on the edge she just fit.

“So do you,” said Maura with a smile. “I have some cold supper in the pantry, I’ll be back in a twinkling.” 

While the halfling whistled and banged pot and pans in the kitchen Charlotte looked around the parlor and tried not to gush at just how little and cute everything was (Mithrandir may or may not have had to shush her the previous night at the inn when she saw the little tables and plates and forks and knives). There were two little overstuffed leather armchairs drawn up by the fireplace (she was sitting on the edge of one), and a child-sized settee under the round window which overlooked the garden. Bookshelves crammed with small books and diminutive knickknacks. A little blue footstool that was barely a foot tall. 

She was holding a teeny-tiny little bust when Maura returns with a laden tray of food.

“Ah, my great-great-grandfather Balbo,” said Maura fondly at the sight of the bust in herhand. He set the tray on the footstool. “Help yourselves to supper. There’s more, of course, if you want more.”

The food, as Mithrandir had promised, looked delicious and there was a lot of it. Savory pork pie, seed cake, buttered scones and raspberry jam, apple tarts, cold sliced chicken, bread and cheese, pickles, and a pot of very hot tea.

As she filled her plate, Maura sat down in the other armchair and said, “Tell me what the news is in the wide-world, Wand-elf,” and when he says Mithrandir’s other name, he slips into his own accent and it rolls off his tongue as Gandalf.

Charlotte frozen, a fork full of sliced chicken halfway to her plate.

Gandalf?

Did Maura just say Gandalf? As in The Lord of the Rings? Fuck. I should have read the books, she thought.

Mithrandir, while telling Maura about some dwarves, looked at her out of the corner of his eye with concern but Maura was oblivious, happily listening to Mithrandir speaking.

Charlotte put her plate down on her lap, panicked and thinking through everything she could remember from the movies...that she didn’t like and haven’t seen for at least a decade.

There was a bad guy. Soren? Saruman? Sharon? Something like that. He had an evil ring--well, he didn’t, Elijah Wood had it. And they all had to go throw it into a volcano? Or maybe she was in the other movies? The ones with the dwarves and Martin Freeman? She remembered even less of those movies. She’d only seen the middle one and had spent most of her time on her phone reading Twitter. She fought the urge to bury her head in her hands and groan.

Why wasn’t she stuck in Outlander? At least then she’d know what was going on.

“I think Charlotte is tired after our journey.” Mithrandir’s gentle voice broke into her frantic thoughts. She looked up to see him watching her in concern.

“Oh, I’m alright,” she said quickly. “Just a little, um, well…”

“I am sure that the events of the last week have left you feeling overwhelmed, my dear. Maura, do you have a room where she can sleep?”

“Oh yes! Of course!” Maura leaped to his feet. “Come with me, Miss Charlotte, I have just the room. We’ll have to push the beds together, of course, but yes, I think it will do quite nicely.”

She brought her plate along with her as Maura led her into the corridor and past a dining room, kitchen, and at least three rooms that appear to be pantries and one that seems to be a walk-in closet filled with smart jackets and waistcoats. 

At the end of the hallway, he pushed open a round door into a cozy little bedroom. There were two beds, one against each wall, with a nightstand between them. She helped Maura move the nightstand out of the way and push the beds together. Maura patted the blankets and promised to return with a few “oversized” quilts and darted out of the room.

Charlotte put her plate down on the nightstand and sat down on the bed. 

Who was Maura then? She wondered. Probably an obscure book character with no lines of dialogue and only a passing mention. That would be her luck.

Maura returned with the quilts and her bags. He told her to give him a tick and he’ll be back with water for washing. True to his word, he returned almost immediately with a pitcher, washbasin, and clean towels. 

“I’ll have a bath drawn up in the morning and can arrange to have your traveling clothes laundered as well. Heaven knows that Gandalf always needs his clothes laundered when he visits.” Maura laughed good-naturedly. 

“Does Mith--er, Gandalf visit often?” she asked.

Maura shook his head, “Once every year or so--at least until the last several years. It’s been an age since he was last in the Shire. Things are changing here. More elves going West, strange tidings from the Outside. Well, I’m sure you know,” he said, gesturing towards Charlotte. 

She laughed nervously. She wanted to ask him about the films but couldn’t think of the best way to bring it up. 

Maura, as if he sensed her unsettled state, wished her goodnight and then left. As she closed the door behind him, she heard him calling out to Mithrandir in his own language and Mithrandir responding with a rumbling laugh. 

Charlotte dug through her bag for a pen and some paper and in the growing darkness make a list of everything she could remember from the films.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is how S realized which story she was in:
> 
> S: Thank you for the pictures of Mithrandir. So he's basically like a Gandalf then?  
> Me: Google "Mithrandir"  
> S: OH MY GOD WHATTTTT  
> S: I KNEW IT  
> S: I am so confused. But aren't the little people hobbits?  
> Me: Google "halfling"  
> S: I hate you.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Large sections of dialogue are direct quotes from "The Fellowship of the Ring."

In the morning Maura introduced her to a plump-faced halfling woman named Meie. She couldn’t speak a word of Sindarin-slash-English but she was more than happy to show Charlotte to a bathroom with a tub of hot, soapy water. Maura explained that Meie was his housekeeper and cook. Her brother, Ban, was Maura’s gardener. Maura left her in Meie’s capable hands for a good scrubbing.

The tub was too small for her to do anything more than kneel in it, but she didn’t care. The sides were tall enough that she could dump buckets of water over her head. Meie gave her soap and towels and left her alone in the bathroom. It was a little room with a tile floor and a drain in the floor that led to the garden outside. The tub was an old fashioned looking copper tub. There was a little round window in the wall that overlooked the garden and the rolling hills and fields beyond. 

She scrubbed herself clean and spent a long time washing her hair. She had thick, curly hair. At home, she either wore it up in a tight bun or (for special occasions) used curl cream so that her curls didn’t turn into an unmanageable mess of frizz. Since she’d arrived in this world she’d kept it in a bun or ponytail--anything to keep the cloud of frizz out of her face. That morning she combed her fingers through it while it was wet and decided to let it air dry. All of the halflings she had seen so far had curly hair. Perhaps she could pantomime with Meie and find out what they used to keep their curls tidy.

After Charlotte bathed, Meie ushered her into the kitchen where Mithrandir and Maura were already eating breakfast. Charlotte did a double-take when she saw Mithrandir. His hair was damp and combed, and instead of his usual robes, he was wearing a gray tunic over gray pants. He wasn’t wearing shoes and he had blue socks (the same color as his hat) on his feet. He looked... exceptionally domestic.

He was clearly amused by her reaction and winks at her. Maura, not having noticed, beckoned her to the table and started dishing up a full breakfast onto her plate: fried tomatoes, bacon, eggs, and beans, toast, and sausage. It was the same meal her mum had made the morning she left Wembley for Glasgow and it made her throat tight. Charlotte touched the locket hanging under her blouse.

“Do you not like eggs?” asked Maura, suddenly worried. “I got a bit carried away with your plate. You can leave anything behind that you don’t like. It is a bit heartier than what the elves normally eat, I suppose.”

“Oh no, it’s all lovely. It reminded me of home.”

Maura’s smile is radiant in its warmth. “Well, that is good then, isn’t it?” He put toast on her plate and set it down in front of her. “Dig in, as they say.”

She could tell that he had already eaten a full helping himself and watched in awe as he helped himself to more. She had no idea how the halfling could possibly eat so much and remain so small.

As she ate Mithrandir inquired after how she slept and Maura peppered her with questions about where she was from. She tried to explain her twenty-first-century life as simply as she could. Maura was politely confused and Mithrandir listened intently to her every word.

After breakfast, Charlotte offered to help Meie clean up the kitchen but she just gave Charlotte a dimpled smile and shooed her away. Maura and Mithrandir went into the study to smoke their pipes by the window. Charlotte decided to follow them.

They were both lost in thought (probably digesting after eating so much for breakfast, she thought) but neither asked her to leave when she sat down on a sofa in the corner. She picked up one of the little books and idly flipped through it. It was half the size of a normal book. It reminded her of the sort of paperback books she sometimes bought from a kiosk in the airport before a long flight. Maddeningly, although the book used the Latin alphabet, she couldn’t understand a word of it. 

The night before she’d made a timeline of everything she could remember from the movies. It wasn’t much, but she hoped that if Mithrandir and Maura started to drop more information she might remember other things and be able to flesh it out a little more.

What she remembered boiled down to this: There was an evil Ring that was very bad. Four little farmers had to destroy it. The farmers were Frodo, Sam, Merrin, and Pippin. They liked second breakfast. Soren’s forces who came to look for the framers every time they “felt” the Ring were creepy horsemen in black coats who looked like dementors and had no face. There was an evil wizard called Saruman who threw Gandalf onto the top of a tower. Saruman had an orc factory in his basement.

Then there were elves who liked waterfalls. One of the elves said, “One does not walk into Mordor.” Mordor, she guessed, must be where the bad guy Soren lived. In any case, there was a burning eyeball and a volcano there. She knew that there was a really long and really boring walk to the volcano. There was a dwarf that went with them. He wanted everyone to visit his family who lived underground but his whole family was dead. Then orcs chased them and a balrog got Gandalf. She was pretty sure he was dead but maybe he survived? She couldn’t quite remember because she knew he had been in all three movies. 

After that most of the elves and the farmers and the dwarf went off on other adventures. Something about taking the elves to Isengard? That was a meme, wasn’t it? But she was pretty sure they camped with Cate Blanchett for a while. Charlotte liked Cate Blanchett. Her movies were always good. Speaking of actresses she recognized, there was also Miranda Richardson who lived in a city with nomadic horse people. She remembered that there was one elf who was always greasy looking who was in love with an elf lady and he married her in the end too. She was pretty sure those were the only women in the entire franchise.

Also, the trees could talk and that was weird. Oh, and there was a little dude who wanted the Ring and called it “My precious”, but she couldn’t for the life of her remember where he fit into the story. The last thing that she remembered was that the Ring had to be tossed into the volcano and that made Soren explode and then the good guys won.

She wished she’d paid closer attention to the movies the last time she’d seen them. She was irritated with herself when she remembered that she’d literally sat next to someone on the train on the way to Glasgow who had been watching one of the films.

The breeze through the window was warm and she could hear someone working in the garden outside. Probably Meie’s brother, she realized.

At length, Maura laid down his pipe and said, “Last night you began to tell me strange things about my ring, Gandalf--”

That caught Charlotte’s attention.

“--And then you stopped because you said that such matters were best left until daylight.”

She looked up from the book and stared at Maura and Mithrandir.

Mithrandir blew out a steady stream of smoke and looked at her as if he were making up his mind about something. Then he gave a little nod to himself and turned to look at Maura.

Maura had continued on, “Don’t you think you had better finish now? You say the ring is dangerous, far more dangerous than I guess. In what way?”

“In many ways, it is far more powerful than I ever dared to think at first,” said Mithrandir slowly. “So powerful that it would utterly overcome anyone of mortal race from this world who possessed it. It would possess him.”

Charlotte put the book down in her lap, all pretense at pretending to look at it gone.

Mithrandir told the story of how thousands of years ago the elves had made many magic rings. With each ring, they had learned a little more about the making of them. Mithrandir considered the minor magical rings to be dangerous to humans and halflings alike but not as dangerous as the Great Rings. Charlotte can practically hear the capitalization when he said “Great Rings.” It sent a chill down her spine. She caught flash of red on Mithrandir’s finger, his ring catching the sunlight.

“A mortal, Maura,” said Mithrandir, “Who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues, until at least every minute is a weariness. And if he often uses the Ring to make himself invisible, he fades: he becomes in the end invisible permanently.”

Charlotte chewed on her bottom lip. Now that Mithrandir had mentioned invisibility she remembered a scene from the movie when the one farmer turned invisible. 

Mithrandir continued, “Yes, sooner or later--later, if he is strong or well-meaning, to begin with, but neither strength nor good purpose will last--sooner or later the Dark Power will devour him.”

“How terrifying!” exclaimed Maura.

Charlotte agreed with that assessment. She tried to remember if the movies had brought up this point. If they didn’t, they should have. It’s much more ominous and threatening than the eye-thing; fading away until one’s body disappears and then only the soul is left--enslaved to the Dark Power.

“Wait,” Charlotte interrupted, thinking about what Mithrandir had said. “Why did the elves make something so evil? Wouldn’t they have noticed the body/soul splitting thing when they made the rings?”

Mithrandir heaved a sigh. “There were only three Great Rings made by the elves. These rings have powers of preservation when wielded by those not constrained by mortality. But there was another Ring made in secret, long ago. A Ruling Ring. This Ring can and will corrupt the rings of the Elves.”

Charlotte stared hard at the ring on Mithrandir’s finger.

“How long have you known this? And how much did dear Uncle Bibla know?” asked Maura.

Mithrandir’s face was kind. “Bilba knew no more than he told you, I am sure. He would certainly never have passed on to you anything that he thought would be a danger.”

Charlotte held up a hand, interrupting Mithrandir, “Are you saying that Maura has the bad Ring? The evil Ring?”

Before Mithrandir could answer, Maura spoke up, “How long have you known all this?”

“Known?” asked Mithrandir, completely ignoring her question--although he shot her a keen glance, “I have known much that only the Wise know, Maura. But if you mean ‘know about this ring,’ well, I still do not know, one might say. There is a last test to make. But I no longer doubt my guess.” 

He took a breath as if he’s going to continue, but Charlotte interrupted again, remembering something from the movie. “You have to put it in the fire.”

“The fire!” cried Maura in alarm, jumping to his feet and clutching at his trouser pocket.

“Charlotte is correct,” said Mithrandir, his voice grave. “Give Charlotte the ring for a moment.”

Maura stood there, frozen, hand over his pocket. Then, slowly, he reached inside to withdraw a ring clasped to a chain that hung from his belt. Charlotte stood up and held out a hand. She thought that perhaps Mithrandir thought Maura was incapable of throwing it into the fire himself. In that case, she would do it for him. It was a plain-looking gold ring. It reminded her of her father’s wedding band. Slowly, very slowly, Maura unclasped the ring. He held it in his fist for a moment before uncurling his fingers and dropping it into her hand.

It’s a man-sized ring. Far too big for a halfling to comfortably wear. It didn’t feel magical or evil like she thought it might. It looked like an ordinary ring.

“Put it on, Charlotte,” Mithrandir said.

She immediately threw the ring across the room and into the fireplace. It hit the brick wall at the back of the fireplace with an audible ‘ping’ before bouncing into the fire and was lost between the burning logs and glowing coals.

“Holy hell! No, I am not putting that ring on. No way!” She cried, shaking her hand as if she’d touched something hot.

Maura is aghast and Mithrandir broke into laughter. When Maura made to grab the tongs, Mithrandir held him back and said, “Wait!” His voice and look were stern.

Charlotte inched towards the fireplace. As she drew closer she spotted it, under a log, sitting on top of the red hot coals.

Mithrandir drew the curtains, dimming the room considerably. The only light in the room came from the fireplace. He walked up to stand next to her, arms folded across his chest. Stooping, he picked up the tongs and reached into the fire, and withdrew the ring.

“It is quite cool. Take it,” he said, holding the ring out to Maura.

Maura’s hand was trembling but he plucked the ring from the tongs. 

“Hold it up,” said Mithrandir. “And look closely.”

Even Charlotte could see the minuscule etchings that have appeared on the ring. As Maura turned the ring over in his hand she saw that the etchings surround the outside and inside of the ring. They were bright but somehow also seemed far away: like glimpsing magma deep below through a crack in the earth’s surface. The letters were familiar but the text was as incomprehensible to her as the book she had been looking at only a few minutes before.

“I,” began Maura. He paused and licked his lips before starting again, “I cannot read the fiery letters.”

Mithrandir sighed. His face looks drawn and tired. “No,” he said, “But I can. The letters are Elvish, of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Mordor, which I will not utter here.”

The world Mordor was heavy and ominous. It filled her very heart with dread.

Mithrandir recited the rhyming couplet written on the ring. It was familiar. It must have been in the movies. Then he explained that it is only the last two lines from an Elvish poem written long ago.

"Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,  
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,  
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,  
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne  
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.  
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,  
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them  
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie."

For a long moment, she didn’t dare to move or even breathe. Maura looked similarly transfixed.

“This is,” said Mithrandir, his voice deep and grave and slow, “This is the Master-Ring, the One Ring to rule them all. This is the One Ring that he lost many ages ago, to the great weakening of his power. He greatly desires it--but he must not get it.”

Maura dropped wordlessly onto a chair by the fire, the Ring laying heavy in the palm of his hand. 

The halfling’s little study with its quaint miniature furnishings felt as if it had faded away. She felt as if she was standing on a precipice looking out over a chasm filled with dark clouds of fear with no escape.

“This--this Ring?” Maura’s voice broke. “How on earth did it come to me?”

Mithrandir drew up a stool, his face weary. “Ah,” he said. “That is a very long story. The beginnings lie back in the Black Years, which only the lore-masters now remember. If I were to tell you all that tale, we would still be sitting here when Spring had passed into Winter.”

Charlotte sat down on the floor beside the hearth. She kept a wary eye on Maura (and the Ring) as Mithrandir continued, talking about the return of a Dark Lord.

“Always,” said Mithrandir, “After a defeat or a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again.”

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Maura.

Charlotte heartily agreed. As much as she had always longed for adventures, being thrust into one (and one that seems increasingly dangerous) without being given any say in the matter, was deeply unsettling. 

Mithrandir patted Maura’s knee. “So do I, and so do all who live to see such times.” He looked at Charlotte and gave her a half-smile. “But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

She remembered that line from the movie. But She didn’t think Gandalf said it in the beginning. She thought he said it later when they’re in the underground cave-thing, but before Gandalf fought the fire-monster. 

“And already, Maura and Charlotte, our time is beginning to look black.” Mithrandir stroked his beard and stared into the fire. “The Enemy is fast becoming very strong. His plans are far from ripe, I think, but they are ripening. We shall be hard put to it. We should be very hard put to it, even if it were not for this dreadful chance. The Enemy still lacks one thing to give him strength and knowledge to beat down all resistance, break the last defenses, and cover all the lands in a second darkness. He lacks the One Ring.”

Mithrandir’s voice was solemn as he continued, explaining in greater detail the peril faced by all who dwelt in Arda. The Dark Lord had gathered the Nine rings of Men and the Seven rings of the dwarves—those, she realized, must be the dwarves. The men who bore the Nine rings, Mithrandir explained, have faded completely and their souls were enslaved to the dominion of the One Ring. He went on to tell them that for thousands of years, the Dark Lord had assumed that the One Ring had been destroyed by the elves but that he had learned that it still exists.

“So he is seeking it, seeking it,” said Mithrandir, “and all his thoughts are bent on it. It is his greatest hope and our greatest fear.”

“Why,” cried Maura, “Why wasn’t it destroyed? And how did the Enemy ever come to lose it, if he was so strong and it was so precious to him?” He wraps his fist tightly around the Ring and holds it to his chest.

And then Mithrandir launched into the story of the losing and finding of the Ring. In a great battle, when the elves and men fought the Dark Lord, the Ring was cut from his hand and the Dark Lord’s spirit fled. A man, a king, claimed it for his own. Later the Ring was lost in a river when the king was slain by yrch. Thousands of years later it was found by two young halflings--or halfling-like beings. One of them, Smeagol, killed the other for the Ring. Later, after using the invisibility conferred by the Ring to pester and bully his family, he was turned out of his home and wandered the wild. At long last, he crawled into a cave in the mountains and both he and the Ring were lost in the shadows.

“Gollum!” Maura cried, “Gollum? Do you mean that this is the very Gollum-creature that Bilba met? How loathsome!”

Gollum! thought Charlotte. That was the name of the little bald man who said, ‘My precious.’

“I think it is a sad story. And it might have happened to others, even to some halflings that I have known,” said Mithrandir. 

While Mithrandir and Maura discussed the likelihood of Gollum being a halfling Charlotte stared at the fire, overwhelmed. Her head was spinning from all of the information that Mithrandir had given them. She hoped that the books didn’t have whole speeches like that in them.

“He figured out who Bibl was from that riddle game they played, didn’t he?” Maura was asking.

Mithrandir nodded.

“Then why didn’t he track Bilba further? Why didn’t he come to Sûzat?”

“Now we come to it,” said Mithrandir with a sigh. “I think Gollum tried to. He set out and came back westward, as far as the Great River. But then he turned aside.”

“Why?” Charlotte asked.

“Something drew him away. So my friends think, those that hunted him for me.”

“Who hunted him for you?” Charlotte sat up a little straighter.

“The Wood-elves tracked him first,” said Mithrandir. He explained how the elves had followed Gollum’s tracks until Gollum passed out of their lands.

“And then,” said Mithrandir, “I made a great mistake. Yes, you two,” he said at both of their surprised faces. “And not the first; though I fear it may prove the worst. I let the matter be. I let him go; for I had much else to think of at that time, and I still trusted the lore of Saruman.”

Then Mithrandir dropped the worst bit of information she could think of: “But I am afraid there is no possible doubt: he had made his slow, sneaking way, step by step, mile by mile, south, down at last to the Land of Mordor.”

“Well, fuck,” Charlotte said.

Mithrandir explained how the Dark Lord’s forces captured Gollum and tortured him. It was then that the Dark Lord learned of Bilba Labigni and Sûzat. Mithrandir was certain that the Dark Lord would soon send an evil servant to find and take the One Ring.

“We have to do something,” she said firmly. She liked Maura and she liked the cheerful and pleasant place where he lived. The halflings would be toast if an evil overlord set his sights on it.

“And what do you propose, Charlotte?” asked Mithrandir.

“Why are you trusting me with all of this information?” She asked. “I’m a stranger from a strange land and you've just given me the knowledge to destroy this entire world.”

Maura scooted his stool back a good foot and looked even more afraid than he had a minute before as if only just realizing that she might be dangerous.

Mithrandir, somehow, didn’t look concerned in the slightest. “Perhaps you have been brought here for this moment.”

“So you’re just going to take it on faith that I’m not a crazy person who’s going to take the Ring and run to this Dark Lord and hand it over?”

If anything Mithrandir looked even less concerned. He picked up his pipe and puffed on it.

“She has a very good point, you know,” said Maura. He wagged a finger in her direction. “She could have come from anywhere!”

“Exactly!” she agreed. “I could be a very evil person. This could all be a plot to take over the world.”

Maura, inexplicably, looked a little less terrified.

“Hey, I am a very scary person!”

Mithrandir had the gall to laugh at her.

“What is so funny?” Charlotte spluttered. 

“You are not an evil person, Charlotte,” said MIthrandir, calmly. “As I said previously, it may be that you have been brought to this world for this very moment.”

“How do you know that?”

“Put the Ring on, Charlotte,” he said.

“Why? It’s evil!”

“I have one last test. Should I be wrong, you will come to no harm. I will see to it myself that you are far removed from all of this evil and danger.”

Maura peeked into his fist at the Ring. Then he looked at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few notes:
> 
> 1\. S and I discussed shipping when we first started this story and she definitely wanted it included. First, I offered up the chance to ship Charlotte with Halbarad or Dagoras. They were too sneaky for her taste. Later I offered the chance to ship Charlotte with another character and she turned him down as well (no spoilers for those of you who are reading this as I update, ha!). Finally, she met some elves. She's ahead of those of you here on AO3 (she's on chapter 22, I think). We decided to ship Charlotte with Glorfindel. I've adjusted the tags to reflect this....just know it's a very (very) slow burn.
> 
> 2\. Meie is Sam's sister, May. We don't have a Westron name for her, so I've gone back to the good old Google Translate and given her name in Frisian. 
> 
> 3\. S was aghast that Charlotte originally ate eggs. In honor of her horror, Maura asks Charlotte if she doesn't like them.
> 
> 4\. What Charlotte remembers of the films is largely accurate to what S remembered when we first started. I interrogated her as carefully as possible so that I wouldn't accidentally influence what she could remember. She would like it known that she did know full well that Soren and Sharon were NOT the names of any of the bad guys.
> 
> 5\. Almost every piece of dialogue spoken by Frodo and Gandalf about the Ring comes verbatim from the book. S was probably horrified by the massive exposition dump in the dialogue. No one tell her that there is literally a chapter full of expository dialogue right at the start of Fellowship. I also switched from "ring" to "Ring" once it was identified as the One Ring. 
> 
> 6\. There's a reason Charlotte can see Gandalf's ring and why he told her to put the Ring on.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, lots of dialogue is lifted straight of "The Fellowship of the Ring."

“If you want me to put that thing on, then I need a fool-proof reason why,” She said, crossing her arms over her chest and lifting her chin with a bravado she hoped Mithrandir bought.

He paused, deliberating. Then said, “You are not from the planes of this world. You are not even from the Void. You have come from a world beyond the reach and limits of Eä and thus, I believe, you are not subject to the magic of this world.”

“So what?” Charlotte asked.

“It is my thought that the Ring, in your hands, would be little more than a small circle of gold. That it would hold no more sway over you than your coat or your shoes.”

“And if you’re wrong? This ring certainly had an effect.” Charlotte held up her right hand, the one bearing the green ring, and wiggled her fingers.

“I shall personally see to it that you are removed far from the danger and temptation of the ring.”

“How would you do that?” she asked.

“I will take you to Cirdan the Shipwright in the Gray Havens and he shall send you West in one of his ships.”

“West?!” cried Maura, “To Valinor! But how is that possible? Only the Elves can take the Straight Path to Valinor!”

Mithrandir did not answer Maura’s question but instead looked at her steadily. His blue eyes were keen but honest. “I will not let harm befall you, Charlotte.”

She bit her lip.

“Fine,” she said grudgingly. “I’ll put the ring on. I better not die over it.”

His hand trembling from the effort, Maura surrendered the Ring to her. She sighed, closed her eyes, and slipped it on over her index finger.

Maura gasped.

“What! What happened?! Am I invisible?” Her eyes flew open and she looked down at her body in alarm.

“No, no,” Maura stammered.

She looked at Mithrandir and he was smiling. He looked pleased.

Holding up her hand she stared at the ill-fitting Ring. “It’s way too big,” she said.

“How curious,” said Maura, inching closer and half reached for the Ring. “It fits my finger well.”

“I do not think it would be wise for Charlotte to wear or carry the Ring unless there is dire need,” said Mithrandir. “It has no claim on her and will look for any opportunity to escape.”

She pulled the Ring off of her finger and handed it back to Maura. He looked at it suspiciously and rolled it between his fingers. 

“So it’s not evil to me?” she asked Mithrandir.

He shook his head. “It is nothing more than a trinket in your hands.”

“But it’s still evil for everyone else?” She shivered at his nod.

Suddenly Mithrandir started and gave a cry of alarm and groped in the general direction of Maura. Maura was sitting on his chair with the Ring on his finger looking almost deviously pleased with himself. Mithrandir couldn’t see him, but she could.

Charlotte reached over and poked Maura’s shoulder. “Take that thing off, Maura Labingi,” she admonished in the same tone of voice she used to scold Thomas and Amelia when they were being naughty. “Weren’t you listening? That thing is still evil.”

Maura’s laugh sounded strained as he obeyed and took the Ring off of his finger and put it in his pocket.

“You must not do that,” Mithrandir said, his voice stern and dark. “You become like a beacon to the Enemy with the ring upon your finger.”

“How come I could still see him?” Charlotte asked.

Mithrandir, without shifting his glare from Maura said, “The magic of the ring does not affect you. You see the people under its magic as they are.”

She wondered what she would see if she ever saw that Gollum creature. Charlotte grimaced. It probably wouldn’t be pretty.

“What do we do now?” asked Maura. 

“Don’t you have friends who would know what to do?” Charlotte asked, remembering the Fellowship from the movie.

“Why not destroy it?” said Maura. “As should have been done long ago? If you had warned me or even sent me a message, I would have done away with it.”

Mithrandir looked at Maura. “Would you? How would you do that? Have you ever tried?”

“No. But I suppose one could hammer it or melt it.”

“Try!” said Mithrandir. “Try now!”

Charlotte leaned forward, curious to see what will happen. Maura took the Ring out of his pocket and looked at it. The golden ring glinted in the firelight. Maura turned it over in his fingers, staring at it. He watched it roll from his fingers into the palm of his hand and gazed at it, lost in thought. He sighed and tucked it back in his pocket and then started as if surprised by his own actions.

Mithrandir’s laugh was grim. “You see? Already you too, Maura, cannot easily let it go, nor will to damage it. And I could not ‘make’ you--except by force and that would break your mind. But as for breaking the Ring, force is useless. Even if you took it and struck it with a heavy sledgehammer, it would make no dint in it. It cannot be unmade by your hands, or by mine.”

Outside the window was the sound of someone working in the garden. Inside the room was fraught with tension.

“Then is there any way to destroy it?” Charlotte asked, knowing full well what the answer will be. It would have to be taken to the volcano and tossed in there. 

“There is only one way: to find the Cracks of Doom in the depths of Orodruin, the Fire-mountain, and cast the Ring in there, if you really wish to destroy it, to put it beyond the grasp of the Enemy forever.”

“I do really wish to destroy it!” cried Maura. “Or, well, to have it destroyed. I am not made for perilous quests.” He sighed and seemed to sink down into himself. “I wish I had never seen the Ring! Why did it come to me? Why was I chosen?”

Mithrandir’s voice was kind and gentle. “Such questions cannot be answered. You may be sure that it was not for any merit that others do not possess: not for power or wisdom. At any rate. But you have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have.”

This, Charlotte thought, was hardly very encouraging. Maura seemed to agree with her.

“But I have so little of any of these things! You are wise and powerful. Will you not take the Ring?” He held the Ring out to Mithrandir.

“No!” Mithrandir jumped to his feet and stumbled as he backed into his stool. 

Charlotte got to her feet in alarm.

“No!” said Mithrandir, holding his hands up in front of himself, as if to shield himself from the Ring. “With that power, I should have power too great and terrible. And over me, the Ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly. Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself!”

Maura’s outstretched hand faltered.

Mithrandir dropped his hands and his face was grieved. “Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good. Do not tempt me! I dare not take it, not even to keep it safe, unused. The wish to wield it would be too great for my strength. I shall have such need of it.”

He turned away and whispered, “Great peril lies before me.” His head hanging, Mithrandir crossed the room and drew back the curtains, and looked out the window.

Charlotte had forgotten it was still morning. Outside the sun was bright and the sky was blue. A halfling walked past the window whistling with a pair of garden shears resting on his shoulder. She looked at Maura who looked, if it were possible, even more frightened than he had looked before.

“Okay,” Charlotte said after taking a deep breath. “So we have to destroy it.”

Mithrandir turned back from the window, his face no longer stricken with grief and fear. “I will always help you.” He crossed the room and laid a hand on Maura’s shoulder and on her arm. “I will help you bear this burden. As long as it is yours to bear. But we must do something, soon. The enemy is moving.”

With that ominous pronouncement, Mithrandir righted his stool and sat down on it. He took up his pipe again and puffed at it, lost in thought, eyes partially closed. Charlotte shook her head and leaned against the fireplace, arms crossed. Maura, for his part, stood rooted to the spot, staring at the fire as if all of the answers were written in the coals.

“Well?” said Mithrandir after a long pause. “What are you thinking about? Have you decided what to do?”

“No!” said Maura, shaking his head and looking around, as if startled to see that he was still safely in his study on a warm, sunny April morning. “Or, perhaps, yes. I should like to save Sûzat, if I could. I cannot keep the Ring and stay here. I ought to leave Labin-nec, leave everything, and go away. But I do not know where to go.” He sighed.

Charlotte cleared her throat and said, “I think I have an idea. Aren’t the elves really wise? Can’t we take it to them?”

Mithrandir nodded. “There are three great and wise Elves left on these shores of Middle Earth, Cirdan the Shipwright in the Gray Havens, Elrond Peredhel in Imladris, and the Lady Galadriel in Lothlorien.”

“My uncle Bilba knows Elrond,” said Maura. “Elrond deciphered the dwarves’ map and the moon runes written on it.”

Charlotte had never heard of the Shipwright before but she knew that Galadriel was Cate Blanchet and Elrond was probably the elf played by Hugo Weaving. 

“Who’s this Kear-dan guy?” she asked.

“Cirdan was one of the first elves to awaken in Cuiviénen in the Years of the Trees before the passage of time was marked by the traversing Sun and Moon. He was personally invited by the Vala Oromë to Valinor along with three other great Elfin kings. Cirdan, however, was delayed in his journey to the West by the search for his kin.” Mithrandir chewed on the end of his pipe after he finished speaking.

“Did he go west?” asked Maura, “To Valinor?”

Mithrandir shook his head. “He did not. He is the highest and most noble of the Teleri. His wisdom is renown and it is to Cirdan that Halbarad and Dagoras offered to take Charlotte.”

“Oh, he’s the mysterious “Shipwright” you were talking about with Halbarad and Dagoras,” Charlotte said. “Why is he called that anyway?”

“He builds the ships that the elves use to sail into the West,” said Maura.

“How do you know so much about elves?” Charlotte asked him.

His cheeks flushed. “Uncle Bibla was a student of history.”

“It is thanks to your Uncle Bibla’s fine teaching that you speak Sindarin so well,” Mithrandir admonished.

“Okay,” Charlotte said rubbing her chin thoughtfully. “We’ve got Cirdan: super old and wise. Then there’s Elrond?”

“The greatest lore-master in all of Middle Earth,” supplied Maura.

“Right, so Wise-Elf, Story-Elf, and the Lady?”

“Yes, who is Lady Galadriel?” asked Maura. “I have never heard of her before.”

“She is a powerful elf, perhaps the most powerful outside of Valinor,” said Mithrandir. “Her beauty is unrivaled, her wisdom wide, and her compassion deep.”

“So we take the ring to one of these elves,” Charlotte said thoughtfully. 

Maura said, “We should take the ring to Elrond in Imladris. He’ll know what to do. Perhaps he’ll also know how you came to our world, Charlotte.”

“You are not the first visitor to our world,” said Mithrandir.

Now that is a tidbit of information she wished he had dropped earlier but before she can pounce on it, Maura said, “Of course, I have sometimes thought of going away, but I imagined it as a kind of holiday, a series of adventures like Bilba’s or better, ending in peace. But this would mean exile, a flight from danger into danger, drawing it after me. And I suppose I must go alone if I am to do that and save the Shire. But I feel very small, and very uprooted, and well--desperate. The Enemy is so strong and terrible.”

“You won’t go alone, Maura,” Charlotte told him quickly. “I’ll go with you.” She figured that if she was immune to the magic around the Ring she might be able to help him.

“My dear Maura and my dear Charlotte!” exclaimed Mithrandir. “You really are both amazing. Halflings especially so, as I have said before. You can learn all that there is to know about their ways in a month, and yet after a hundred years, they can still surprise you at a pinch. I am afraid you are right. The Ring will not be able to stay hidden in the Shire much longer; and for your own sake, as well as for others, you will have to go, and leave the name of Labingi behind you. That name will not be safe to have, outside the Shire or in the Wild. I will give you a traveling name now. When you go, go as Mr. Underheuvel.”

“Do I get a code name?” Charlotte asked cheekily.

She was certain she caught Mithrandir rolling his eyes. “You can go as Otholiel.”

“Stranger? That’s the best name you can think of?”

Mithrandir, ignoring her objections knelt down in front of Maura. “I don’t think that you and Charlotte need to go alone. Not if you know of anyone you can trust, and who would be willing to go by your side--and that you would be willing to take into unknown perils. But if you look for another companion, be careful in choosing! And be careful of what you say, even to your closest friends! The enemy has many spies and many ways of hearing--”

Mithrandir broke off abruptly and cocked his head to the side, listening. The room was silent. It was silent outside the window too. 

Creeping to the side of the window, Mithrandir motioned for Charlotte and Maura to stay silent. Then, with a dart, he sprung to the window, thrust an arm out, and grabbed hold of a squawking curly-haired halfling.

“No, goed, segen myn burd! Binne jo Banazîr Galbasi? No wat kinne jo dwaan?” Mithrandir pulled the halfling through the window and deposited him on the floor.

Banazîr’s face was flushed bright red as he scrambled to his feet, brushing off his trousers. “Hear segenje dy, hear Gandalf, hear! Neat! Teminsten, ik snoeide gewoan de gersgrins ûnder it finster, as jo begripe wat ik sei.”

Mithrandir’s face was grim, whatever Banazîr said seemed to anger him. He barked something at Banazîr’s and the halfling squeaked and shook his head, gesturing toward the window.

Mithrandir’s eyes flashed with anger and he shook his finger in Banazîr’s as he spoke. 

“Herr Maura, hear! Lit him net sear dwaan, hear! Lit him my net omsette yn neat onnatuerlik!” cried Banazîr, cowering against the wall.

Maura, sounding as if he could hardly contain laughter, said something that sounded comforting. 

Banazîr, wringing his hands spoke quickly, words tumbling out one after the other. Maura translated for her in a low voice. “He heard most of what we said. He listened because he’s always loved tales of adventure and elves and he, wait, what? Mithrandir wants us to bring him along?”

Mithrandir laughed and patted Banazîr’s shoulder. “Take him to see the elves, eh?” said Mithrandir, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “So you heard that Mr. Maura is going away?”

Banazîr’s Sindarin/English is heavily accented but he adapted to the change in language without a blink. “I did, sir. And that’s why I choked; which you heard seemingly. I tried not to, sir, but it burst out of me: I was so upset.”

“It can’t be helped, Ban,” said Maura. He looked around the room and swallowed thickly. “I shall have to go. But...if you really care about me, you will keep that dead secret.” He switched to Westron, his tone stern. “As jo dat net dogge, as jo sels in wurd ademje fan wat jo hjir hawwe heard, dan hoopje ik dat Gandalf jo yn in fleurige toad sil meitsje en de gaden fol mei gerslangen folje. "

Banazîr--Ban--fell to the ground at Maura’s threatening tone, trembling.

“Get up, Ban!” said Mithrandir pulling him to his feet. “I have thought of something better than that. Something to shut your mouth and punish you properly for listening. You shall go away with Mr. Maura and Charlotte.”

“Me, sir! Me go and see Elves and all! Hooray!” he danced in place and then burst into tears.

It took considerable effort to calm Ban down. Two cups of tea, a borrowed handkerchief, and a stiff drink. And by the time he was finally able to speak without bursting into either tears or laughter, Meie was knocking at the study door to announce that it was time for lunch. So it was over lunch that Charlotte formally met Banazîr Galbasi, Maura’s gardener, servant, and friend.

Ban explained that his father had worked for Bibla and it was Bilba who had taught a young Ban to read and write both Westron but also Sindarin. He was bashful when he spoke Sindarin, but she praised his efforts and assured him that he was doing a great job of it.

Lunch is a selection of cold sliced meats, bread, cheese, tomatoes, pickles, and lettuce. Charlotte set about making a sandwich with the offerings but froze after her first bite at the sight of both Maura and Ban staring at her.

“What?”

“Is that a food from your homeland?” Maura asked.

She looked at the other plates at the table. Mithrandir and the halflings had put all of the various foods separately onto their plates.

“You guys don’t have sandwiches here?”

“Sam witch?” asked Ban.

“Oh, you are missing out,” she said. 

A sandwich-making lesson was greatly appreciated by the halflings and as they enjoyed their lunch they peppered her with questions about the foods from her world. She told them all about pasta, curry, cinnamon rolls and burritos—a food she’d had often during a semester abroad in Ohio when she was in uni.

“I should very much like to try one of these bur--eee-toes,” said Maura wistfully.

“I think that Meie ought to be able to make some, Mr. Maura,” said Ban stoutly of his sister. “She’s a right good cook and can make just about anything. If Miss Charlotte will tell her how they’re made, of course.” He ducked his head bashfully.

Charlotte laughed. “I can teach her how to make burritos.”

She was a bit puzzled when Mithrandir and Maura didn’t bring up leaving after lunch or in fact, at all for the rest of the day. In the afternoon Ban went back to the garden and Maura excused himself to take a nap. Mithrandir wandered off and she couldn’t find Meie anywhere. 

She ended up in the garden wandering around and looking out at the little village down below, across the river. Ban paused in digging up some weeds to watch. Shyly he offered to teach her some Westron and Charlotte took him up on his offer.

Mithrandir returned from his ambling in time for supper and after supper, he and Maura retired to the study for more pipe smoking and drinks. Charlotte followed them, hoping they’d discuss their next steps. Instead, Mithrandir told stories about the goings-on of some people she’d never heard of until late into the night.

Charlotte was downright confused. She was certain that Frodo and Sam left right away. And weren’t Maura and Ban the same people? The names were different but she was almost positive they were the same. She didn’t remember the movie spending this much time on the hobbits. She definitely remembered them going to see the elves in the first part of the movie. Perhaps they were waiting for nightfall? 

When Maura and Mithrandir went to bed, she went to her room and packed her things. She laced her trainers and put her coat on. She laid in bed waiting for a knock at her door. Well after midnight she finally drifted off, still waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes in no particular order:
> 
> 1\. When Frodo mentions that he has never heard of Galadriel I'm poking fun at the fact that Galadriel didn't factor into Tolkien's initial writing of the Hobbit sequel. At the time Tolkien wrote the chapter "The Shadow of the Past" he hadn't created Galadriel yet. Nerdy joke, I know, haha.
> 
> 2\. How S can remember the names of so many actors and actresses that are in the films but not accurately remember much of the plot is beyond me.
> 
> 3\. It's a bit ambiguous if Gandalf can see people who are invisible while wearing the Ring. To emphasize how odd it is that Charlotte can see Frodo I decided that Gandalf can't see him.
> 
> 4\. "'I do not think it would be wise for Charlotte to wear or carry the Ring unless there is dire need,' said Mithrandir. 'It has no claim on her and will look for any opportunity to escape.'" Ominous foreshadowing is ominous.
> 
> 5\. The foods Charlotte listed are some of the foods that S and I have cooked together over the years. Especially the burritos. Yum!
> 
> 6\. S was ready to set off on an adventure but this story follows book canon, ha! She's got some waiting ahead of her.
> 
> 7\. And there you have it. Charlotte's "superpower" is..."not having a superpower." The idea of the Ring having no effect on her was inspired by Tom Bombadil and wondering what it would have been like if he (or someone like him) was more actively involved in the story. As you'll see, S has a much different attitude toward the Ring than Tom would ever have which I think makes the rest of the story very interesting--then again, as the author, I'm a bit biased!
> 
> 8\. Thank you again to all of my readers and especially to those who left comments and kudos! See you next week!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mnemosynes_tears left a very kind review to let me know that I hadn't caught as many of the you/your as I thought I had. I've gone back through all of the previous chapters and changed them to she/her. As a thank you to mnemosynes_tears, here is an early update.
> 
> Once again, some of the dialogue comes directly from Fellowship.

Charlotte woke up the next morning exhausted and irritable. She’d fallen asleep with her shoes on, on top of the blankets. Her neck was sore and was stiff all over. Her hair was a mess of frizz all around her head. She opened the door and a crack and stuck her head out. Down the hall, she could hear Mithrandir and Maura talking in the dining room. 

Meie popped out of the kitchen and grinned when she saw Charlotte. She held up a basket of what appeared of linens and clothes. She mimed scrubbing. On top of the basket was a gray cloak that Charlotte recognized as belonging to Mithrandir. She gave Meie a quick nod and then retreated back to her room to decide what she wanted to be washed. It would appear that they weren’t starting out immediately. She tried to tell herself that it made sense. After all, it would be best to set off with clean clothes and they’d probably need to pack some food or other supplies. 

She kicked her shoes off and didn’t bother to line them up neatly. Frowning over her dress, she pulled it off. It needed a good scrubbing. As did her underwear and jumper. She removed those as well and pulled on her trousers and blouse. Her socks probably could do with a wash, too. She peeled them off and tossed them into the pile of dirty clothes. There was nothing to do with her hair except to twist it out of her face and secure it with a hair elastic.

All of this she gathered up and opened the door. The laundry basket was waiting for her outside the door. She set her things on top and then padded barefoot down the hall (keeping to the center so she wouldn’t have to duck) to the dining room.

Maura and Mithrandir greeted her warmly and Maura hopped up and pulled out the chair beside him for her. He gave her trousers a curious look but didn’t comment on them.

Over breakfast (after introducing a delighted Maura to the idea of an egg, cheese, and biscuit sandwich) she asked them, “What are our plans?”

“You ought to go quietly and you ought to go soon,” said Mithrandir, pouring himself a cup of tea. He was dressed just as casually as he was the day before: socks and all.

“I know,” Maura sighed. “But it is difficult to do both. If I just vanish like Bilba, the tale will be all over Sûzat in no time.”

“Of course you mustn't vanish! That wouldn’t do at all,” said Mithrandir. “I said soon not instantly. If you can think of any way of slipping out of Sûzat without its being generally known, it will be worth a little delay.”

“What if you told everyone that you were going away on a holiday?” Charlotte asked. “Then you can leave for a few weeks before anyone expects you to return. We can be well on our way by that point.”

“A holiday?” asked Maura, curiously. 

“That idea has merit,” said Mithrandir. He had made himself a breakfast sandwich. She was secretly highly amused that the wizard and halfling had taken to sandwiches so much. “But you must not delay too long.”

“What about the autumn, on or after my birthday? I think I could probably make some arrangements by then.”

It was April. Maura wanted to wait until autumn. Charlotte was so surprised that she blurted out, “What? Why do you want to wait so long? Isn’t the Enemy looking for the Ring right now?”

“It’s just...I want to savor as much as I can of my last summer in Sûzat. When autumn comes I know that part of my heart will think more kindly of journeying.” Maura took a sad bite of his food. “I think we should leave on my birthday. It’s my fiftieth and Bilba’s one hundred and twenty-eighth. It seems like the proper day to set out and follow after him.”

“Wait, did you say your fiftieth birthday?” She was as surprised at this piece of information as she was about Maura’s desire to wait until the fall to leave.

He sniffed. “We halflings only come of age at 33.”

“But I’m 34!”

“Ah, so you are a full-grown halfling at last,” said Mithrandir with clear amusement. He sipped at a doll-sized cup of tea.

She made a dramatic pouting face which elicited the chuckle she knew was coming. Her pout broke into a giggle. It is was easy to tease and joke with Mithrandir and Maura. She’d almost forgotten how irritated she was with them when she woke up that morning.

“When is your birthday, Maura?” she asked. 

“September the twenty-second,” said Maura.

“The end of September!” Charlotte sputtered and counted on her fingers. “That’s five months from now! Will we even be safe waiting that long?”

“It would spark an avalanche of gossip from Micel Delfing to Brandalân if another Labingi vanished into thin air. That sort of tale would spread even beyond the borders of Sûzat and likely reach the ears of the Enemy’s spies.” Mithrandir said, setting down his teacup.

“Okay,” Charlotte said, holding up her hands in surrender. “So in September Maura can go on a holiday?”

“No, no,” said Maura. “I have been giving it some thought. Suppose I put out a rumor that Bibla’s famous treasure has been all spent up? That the upkeep of Labin-nec has simply become too costly for me? If I put the smial up for sale Lobelia Sekstêd-Labingi will leap at the opportunity to finally purchase it. Then I can make it known that I am looking for a modest little smial in Brandalân. I have family there; my mother’s father was a Brandagamba.”

“Ah yes, Gorbadoc Brandagamba,” said Mithrandir fondly as if remembering an old friend.

“Quite,” said Maura with a nod. He looked at Charlotte, clearly pleased with his plan as he continued. “My cousin, Kalimac Brandagamba visits me often so it would not be peculiar if I were to return to Brandalân. Once Ban and I--and you too, of course, Charlotte--have settled in Brandalân in an isolated smial, it will be easy enough to slip away one night and be gone for a few days before our absence is noted.”

“I think that will do,” said Mithrandir. “Charlotte, what do you think?”

“It will be hard to wait so long,” Charlotte said, “But if you think it’s the best plan, Mithrandir, we can wait.”

Mithrandir nodded. “It must not be any later than September at any rate. I am getting very anxious.”

That ended the conversation about leaving for the moment. After breakfast, Maura excused himself to write some letters in the study and Charlotte went out to the garden.

The air is warm and fresh. She could smell freshly turned over soil and green grass growing. There was a bench by the door and she sat down, enjoying the sun on her face while she looked out down the hill and over the river at the little halfling town down below. Her family had never been much for gardening. Her mum’s flower baskets hooked to the fence at the back of the garden had been the extent of anything resembling a flower or a vegetable garden.

Maura’s garden was lovely, even in early spring before anything had had much of a chance to start growing. Red and pink tulips, interspersed with cheery yellow daffodils bloomed throughout the garden. There were low lying plants with green leaves and salmon-pink flowers with purple-blue centers. White snowdrops nodded in the breeze by the fence. Neatly trimmed shrubs and bushes with fresh green leaves stood on the outside of the fence. Within the garden, the grass was vibrant green and very soft beneath her bare feet. 

Charlotte wiggled her toes. The sun was warm and the wind carried the scent of freshly tilled soil and of green growing things. She leaned back against the stone face of the smial and stretched her legs out in front of her. If everything about Sûzat was as pleasant as Maura’s garden on a warm spring morning, she could almost understand why he was loathed to rush away.

Ban walked up the path whistling with a hoe over his shoulder, a basket on his arm and thick gardening gloves tucked into his back pocket.

“Good morning, Miss Charlotte,” he said in his accented Sindarin. With a little bow, he opened the gate and entered the garden. “I won’t be disturbing you if I do a little work in the flowerbeds, will I?”

“Oh no, not at all, Ban! Can I help?”

Ban was clearly flustered by her request. He stuttered and stammered and went red in the face. He mumbled something about a lady not needing to get all dirty in the soil but in the end, he handed her a trowel and led her over to the flowerbed. 

“These weeds are called, um, well, I don’t rightly know their name in elvish. We call them paardebloem. They look harmless enough now and they do have a pretty flower. A nice yellow color. But after they flower the seeds turn to fluff and they fly away and scatter all about. The roots are deep, see? You have to dig around it and then dig deep. If you try to pull it before you’ve dug deep enough it will snap off.” He demonstrated, digging around the root and then down, careful not to slice the root with his trowel. The hole was quite deep by the time he was done, up to his elbow. With a sharp, upward tug he pulled the long white taproot free.

“Wow,” Charlotte said. He handed it to her and she inspected it. “Are they all this long?”

Ban shrugged. “More or less, I suppose. My old, um,” he paused, thinking of the appropriate word in Sindarin. “My father says he found a taproot that was ten feet long. It went clear from Mr. Labingi’s garden into his front room. Mr. Bilba Labingi, that is. Not Mr. Maura.”

“Have you always been Maura’s gardener?” She asked as she set to work uprooting the paardebloem roots.

He nodded. “And before him, my father and I tended the gardens for Mr. Bilba. He was a good sort of halfling, Miss, if you know what I mean.”

“Maura said at breakfast this morning that he vanished, what does that mean?”

Ban looked at her with wide eyes. “You mean you don’t know, Miss Charlotte?”

She shook her head.

He glanced around and leaned close to whisper, “Well, near on seventeen years ago, at his birthday party, old Mr. Bilba vanished into thin air!” He snapped his fingers. “Gone, just like that. Never to be seen again. Even Mr. Maura hasn’t gotten so much as a letter from him in all that time.”

She had memories of a party and fireworks from the movie.

“Wait, did you say that was seventeen years ago?”

“Near on, near on,” said Ban turning back to the dirt. “Will be seventeen years come September. I wish I could have gone with Mr. Bilba. I think he’s gone off to see the elves.”

“Well, we’re going to go see the elves,” Charlotte pointed out.

“Hush,” said Ban looking around. “You don’t know who might be listening, Miss Charlotte. I expect that the enemy has spies all about.”

The loyalty of Ban was heartwarming and she apologized. He accepted her apology with a blush and mumble. 

They worked side by side for a while in the spring sunshine. Charlotte was not very good at digging out taproots. She was impatient in her digging and either cut them as she dug, or tried to pull them out too soon and they snapped. Ban was a patient teacher and encouraged all of her efforts. 

He sat back on his heels and dusted off his hands. He watched her triumphantly pull out a whole root with a smile. Then, hesitating a little, he asked, “Do all of the people where you come from wear such peculiar clothes?”

Charlotte looked down at her trousers (now wet and muddy at the knees from kneeling to work in the garden). She shrugged. “Yes, I guess we all do. These are called blue jeans.”

“Blue yeens?” He said carefully. “Are they made from canvas?”

“Denim,” she said.

“They aren’t much like your dress yesterday. It was a nice color.” He blushed so red even the tips of his ears darkened.

She realized then that he was uncomfortable with her strange clothes. Meie and the other female halflings she had seen all wore skirts and dresses. She’d only seen male halflings wearing trousers. “I’ve only got these clothes and that one dress,” she confessed.

“Oh dear,” said Ban looking dismayed. “My sister is a right good seamstress. My other sister,” he clarified. “Although Meie is good with a needle and thread too. But Goudsbloem makes clothes for our whole family and Mr. Maura besides. I think she’d quite like the chance to make you a few dresses. That is, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh no,” said Charlotte shaking her head. “That’s so much work and I’m sure fabric costs so much money.”

“I would be happy to purchase fabric for you,” said Maura. He had pushed open the window of his study and was leaning out. Ban, it seemed, was not the only halfling with a penchant for eavesdropping.

“Mr. Bilba gave our mother a sewing machine and it’s been Goudsbloem’s since she died,” Ban said. 

“A sewing machine?” Charlotte said, incredulously.

“Do you not have sewing machines where you are from?” asked Maura. “They are a marvel, I know. You see, the seamstress works a peddle at the bottom of the machine which sits on a little table. The peddle works the needle up and down. I don’t know all of the mechanics but it is rather clever, I must say.”

“Goudsbloem knows the ins and outs,” said Ban. “She keeps it fixed up and running a real treat.”

Maura gave a little nod. “It’s settled then. After lunch, Charlotte, we’ll have Goudsbloem and Meie take measurements for some new dresses.” He stepped back from the window, she assumed to return to his letters but left the window ajar.

Ban offered to teach her about the flowers he was planting in the garden and their Westron names. That lesson evolved into a lesson on general Westron so that when Mithrandir joined the two of them in the garden a few hours later she could greet him with, “Goeie moarn” which meant “Good morning.”

“Goeie moarn to you, Charlotte,” he said with a smile. He’d put on his boots and his robe and was leaning on his staff. “Would you like to join me in a walk before lunch?”

“Oh, yes! Of course.” She got to her feet and brushed the dirt and grass out of her trousers.

She half expected him to lead her to the village, but instead, they climbed the hill and set off across the countryside. There was a little lane running between the fields and they kept to the lane. Here and there they passed a farmer leading ponies through the field, breaking up the earth with a plow. The halfling farmers, without exception, stopped their work to stare at Charlotte and the wizard. 

“Why’s everyone staring? Don’t they see humans often?” she asked.

“This far into Sûzat?” Mithrandir shook his head.“The Rangers guard Sûzat from any dangers--and Big Folk--who might trespass its borders.”

After an hour of meandering through the countryside, they turned back towards Maura’s house. Mithrandir paused and leaned on his staff.

“On the first of May, I will be meeting an old friend a few days journey south of here. My trip to meet my friend will not be terribly exciting or dangerous, but you may accompany me--if you wish. Or, if you wish, you can remain at Labin-nec until I return. But I should like to have your company.”

Charlotte looked out across the rolling hills. Little smials dug into the hillside were here and there, their brightly painted round doors dotting the landscape. Diminutive farmers worked at their fields or tended to their animals. It was idyllic and beautiful but she couldn’t quite shake the urge to move. She remembered the black-robed horsemen who had been hunting for Frodo in the movies. Surely they’d be arriving soon to find him. 

“I’ll go with you,” she said. 

She could tell that Mithrandir was pleased that she’d decided to go with him to meet his friend. He was pretty tight-lipped about who this friend actually was. All she got was a name, Estel--Hope. She tried to imagine what Estel was like but she couldn’t remember anyone named that from the movies. Maybe it was another name for the elf-lady with the dark hair? It was definitely an elf name.

Meie was waiting for them when they returned from their walk. She had carried a lunch tray for Charlotte into the parlor and she shooed Maura away. Mithrandir told her that Meie was eager to start measuring her and planning some dresses and that no males (halfling or wizard) were allowed. She followed Meie nervously. She was worried that the language will make things awkward but quickly found that Meie’s sunny disposition and friendly nature meant that Charlotte was comfortable in her bustling happy presence almost at once.

Goudsbloem was much like her sister, cheerful and friendly. She knew a little Sindarin and greeted Charlotte with a stilted and accented, “Well met.”

Goudsbloem ushered Charlotte over to a seat by the window. While she ate the lunch Meie had prepared, Goudsbloem held fabric swatches up to Charlotte’s face. She gravitated towards greens. Then she pulled out a dark red fabric and laid it over top. Normally Charlotte associated a red and green combination with Christmas but this didn’t look Christmas-y at all. It looked sophisticated and elegant and perfect. She was worried that the red would look garish with her hair color but Meie buzzed with delight about the color so Charlotte decided to trust the process.

The sisters looked young, younger even than Charlotte, but after her conversation about age over breakfast Charlotte guessed that they were probably much older than they looked. They looked to be in their late teens or early twenties. She didn't know how to ask them how old they were without seeming rude--especially with the language barrier.

Goudsbloem, pushing her dark curls out of her face, sketched dresses for her on a scrap of paper--occasionally using her butter-yellow colored dress as an example. She drew two dresses. Her kindness and Maura’s apparent generosity were too much and Charlotte to turn her down, but she wouldn’t be deterred. She dragged Charlotte by the hand into the middle of the room and pulled out a measuring tape.

She measured Charlotte happily while humming a little song under her breath. She patted Charlotte’s hip (because she couldn’t reach her shoulder) gathered her supplies and skipped out of the room. Meie grinned and followed her sister, carrying an armful of fabric swatches with her. 

Still feeling overwhelmed Charlotte followed her out. Maura and Mithrandir were smoking their pipes in the study.

“How did it go?” asked Maura.

“I can’t possibly repay you!” Charlotte said.

He waved his hand. “Oh yes well, it’s nothing at all.” Swiftly changing the subject he said, “My cousins will be visiting at the end of the week.”

“Perhaps Charlotte’s dresses will be ready by then,” said Mithrandir.

“Ahem, yes, perhaps,” said Maura burying his face in a book.

———

The next few days passed peacefully and she found herself surprisingly busy. After breakfast, she helped Ban in the garden and he taught her more Westron. When Meie had finished cleaning the breakfast dishes she called for Charlotte and she joined her in the parlor where the sewing machine was set up. It was much too small for Charlotte to use, but Goudsbloem taught her a few simple stitches so she could work on some of the bits that need hand stitching. The sisters were teaching her Westron too. Mostly sewing or domestic vocabulary (whatever they could point to or mime easily) but it was fun and the companionship was pleasant and comfortable. 

Mornings were also when Meie would turn the bathroom over to her. Halflings liked to bathe at least every other day, if not every day. The bathroom was directly next to the kitchen and the cast iron wood burning stove also heated a water boiler in the bathroom. Meie also procured a little bottle of hair oil for Charlotte’s use. After every bath, she smoothed some of the oil over her hair with cupped hands to tame her curls.

After lunch, she normally took a walk with either Mithrandir or Maura (or both). She liked these walks because both of them were full of stories about elves and times long ago. Maura usually retired to nap before tea time and that’s when she looked for Meie in the kitchen. She helped her prepare tea and supper before the halfing left for the day.

After tea and before supper Charlotte was left to her own devices. She found a book in the library written in the elvish script. It was a poem that told the love story between an elf princess and a human man. It was terribly romantic and dramatic. It was written in such a way that she could half imagine that it had happened once... long ago.

Keeping busy kept her mind off of home and her family. But her hand often found her locket and she squeezed it in her fist. She wasn’t brave enough to open it and look at Thomas and Amelia’s picture, but she found comfort in holding it close. She knew that the locket hadn’t escaped the notice of either Mithrandir or Maura, but neither of them asked her about it. In a world with evil magic rings, sometimes she wondered if they thought her locket was magical. It would probably be a disappointment to them to realize it really was just an ordinary piece of jewelry and the only magic it held was the memory of her sweet niece and nephew.

Her green ring, on the other hand, really was magical. She was scared to lose it. One night, alone in her room, she slipped it off of her finger and onto the chain with her locket. It felt safer there, hanging around her neck.

Five days into her peaceful routine, it was shattered by the arrival of three young halfling men: Kalimac Brandagma, Fredegar Bolger, and Razanur Tûk. Maura’s cousins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Yes, in the books Gandalf tells Maura at the beginning of April that the Ring has to leave the Shire soon. Maura decides that soon enough is the end of September.
> 
> 2\. Sandwiches weren't "invented" until the 1760s in our world. I decided that Charlotte would be the one to introduce them to Arda. I think they're catching on.
> 
> 3\. "Paardebloem" is a dandelion. They're more of a problem weed in the US, but I decided that in my version of the Shire, Ban would be adept at battling them.
> 
> 4\. There is no Sindarin word that we know of that would be a good stand-in for Gaffer so Sam struggled to translate it.
> 
> 5\. If hobbits have a postal system and clocks then the hobbit women have sewing machines. 
> 
> 6\. Originally there was a long (long) section about dressmaking and choosing fabrics and styles (complete with illustrations and examples!). I decided to edit it down before posting it here.
> 
> 7\. Charlotte was reading the story of Beren and Luthien...which did indeed happen "long ago."


	9. Chapter 9

Within five minutes of meeting Kali, Fetlik and Raza Charlotte couldn’t tell them apart. They were all friendly, talkative, and charming but she could not for the life of her tell one from the other. They couldn’t speak any elvish and although Maura made a great effort to translate, the halflings soon devolved into speaking chiefly in Westron and she was left out of the conversation. After supper, the three new arrivals swept Maura off to the pub in the village for drinks and she was left alone in the smial with Mithrandir who was not much for conversation that night. 

She sat in the parlor with her book but found herself bored. What she wouldn’t give for some wifi and mindless social media scrolling. 

She tried striking up a conversation with Mithrandir again but he only responded to her with a nod and went back to brooding over his pipe. Exasperated, Charlotte retreated to her bedroom. 

She lit the candle on the nightstand and flopped down on the bed. On the back of the chair lay the first of the two dresses that Goudsbloem had made for her. It was made in the halfling style: A full skirt (dark green twill), two petticoats, one cream and trimmed with lace, the other dark blue, a creamy blouse with full, puffy sleeves that ended just above her elbows, and a rust-red bodice that laced in the back and buttoned in the front. Like most of the skirts that the halflings wore, it ended a few inches above her ankles. Goudsbloem had just finished it that afternoon and Charlotte hadn’t had a chance to wear it yet.

She decided that it was as good a time as any. She pulled the red dress she’d gotten in Bree off over her head and tossed it onto the bed. Despite the challenge of making clothes twice as large as she was used to, Goudsbloem had done a magnificent job. Every bit of the dress fit Charlotte perfectly. She spun around in a circle and suppressed a giggle as her skirts swirled around her. She thought of Amelia, who loved to spin in her dress-up clothes, spinning and spinning until she toppled over.

She missed Amelia. The pang of homesickness was so sharp and so intense that Charlotte staggered and dropped down onto the edge of her bed. She screwed up her face to hold back a sob. Unbidden her hand clutched her locket. It had been almost three weeks since she arrived in Arda and she’d resisted the temptation to open her locket. She knew that if she did she would cry and not be able to stop. 

She squeezed it in her fist. When she pulled her hand away the locket had left a red imprint on her hand.

Subdued she changed out of her new clothes and laid them carefully over the back of the chair. She put on her chemise (which she had taken to using as a nightgown) and climbed into bed, pulling the quilt over her head. In the darkness, under the blankets, she pressed the locket to her lips, kissing it reverently.

She missed her family.

The sob she’d fought off earlier bubbled out. It was followed by a torrent of tears. When the four halflings stumbled back up the path a few hours later, Charlotte stayed in her room, hidden under the covers. She felt too exhausted from her tears to greet them and too awake to fall asleep.

She listened to them laughing and chatting in the kitchen (from the sound of it, helping themselves to a bedtime snack) until the wee hours of the morning. She wasn’t aware that she had fallen asleep until Maura knocked on her door and inquired after her.

“I’ll be right out,” she called. She threw the covers back and hurried to dress. The morning sun was already high in the sky and she’d slept much later than she normally did.

It was warm so she forewent shoes in the halfling fashion and hurried barefoot down the corridor to the dining room.

Mithrandir was seated at the head of the table and the four halflings were seated all around him.

“Sit here,” Maura said. “I have saved you some breakfast. I admit that a great battle was fought over the sausages.” Two sausages, speared through with a fork sat on the center of her plate. He brandished a knife at the chubbiest of his guests. “Fetlik, keep your eyes on your own plate!”

The halfling, Fetlik, laughed and wagged his finger at Maura.

Maura rolled his eyes. “He says that it isn’t fair that he can’t understand what I'm saying to you—” He broke off then in a string of Westron. By now she could pick out a few words here and there. The once unintelligible string of sounds had begun to organize itself in her mind into groups of syllables with a few recognizable words here and there. In this case, she understood her own name, something about breakfast, and something else about a bucket.

“What?” she asked, sitting down on the stool beside Maura.

“I believe that Mr. Labingi politely offered to dump a bucket of pig slop over young Master Fredegar should he not take a more courteous tone when speaking to you.”

Maura blushed bright red and sat down, muttering, “Quite.”

The other three halflings burst out into laughter and chatter. 

As Charlotte ate they peppered her with questions (through Maura and Mithrandir). They were curious and persistent. Thanks to some subtle hints by Mithrandir, she concocted a tale about being raised by elves far away after being orphaned as a baby. This, however, only led to more questions about elves. 

So Charlotte told them that the elves lived in the North Pole and made presents for good little girls and boys. Mithrandir snorted into his tea and one of the halflings (Raza, she thought) stiffly said though Maura that if she didn’t want to talk about it she could just tell them.

Maura seemed to find her story as amusing as Mithrandir did and when Meie came in to clear away the breakfast dishes, quietly asked her to tell him more about the elves in her world. 

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “They’re just made up stories in our world. I should be the one asking you what they’re like. ”

“I’ve not met many, not like my Uncle Bilba—he visited Imladris. Twice.”

“But you have met some?” 

He nodded.

“So what are they like?” 

But before he could answer Fetlik asked him a question in Westron. Maura scowled but translated it into Sindarin. “He wants to know how your parents died.”

The question stung. Especially after her tears the night before. “Tell him that he’s a nosy minger and he can fuck right off,” she said.

Charlotte escaped the dining room into the garden and sought out Ban. He must have noticed the thunderous look on her face because he didn’t start with his usual Westron lesson. Instead, he handed her a pair of shears and told her to trim the hedge.

The shears were child-sized but they had a good snip and she attacked the hedge with them. A quarter of an hour later the hedge was substantially diminished but she felt much better. Ban eyed the hedge woefully but didn’t comment.

There was a scuffle by the door and they turned to see Maura, Raza, and Kali shoving Fetlik out the door. He stumbled as they shut the door behind him. Upon noticing Charlotte and Ban he hunched his shoulders and shuffled closer. He mumbled something to Ban.

“He is right sorry, Miss Charlotte,” said Ban, sounding skeptical.

“Tell him I’ll forgive him,” she said, sighing. She supposed it hadn’t been his fault. He didn’t know how keenly she missed her family. He’d just been nosy, not intentionally mean. "And tell him that I'm sorry too. I miss my family and I shouldn't have taken it out on him."

Fetlik brightened and dropped his shoulders when Ban relayed her words. He said something to Ban which made Ban chuckle and shake his head.

“What did he say?”

“He offered to teach you Westron. He said you ought to know more than just the names of flowers.”

“He’s insufferable, isn’t he?”

“He’s a good friend to Mr. Maura. But he is young, isn’t he?”

She sat down on the bench by the door and gestured for Fetlik to start teaching her. As he pointed out and named various objects (including flowers, which made her laugh), the other halflings came out to join him. It turned into a pleasant morning. Even though she couldn’t understand their Westron and they didn’t speak any Sindarin, Fetlik, Kali, and Raza were clever and funny and made her laugh more than once.

After lunch, the halflings invited her to play croquet. She’d never played before and Maura offered to be her teammate. Ban was recruited to play to make the number of teams equal.

“They feel awful that they drove you off at breakfast,” Maura confided in a low voice as he handed her the mallet.

“I suppose we need a better cover story for me,” she said. She had to kneel (carefully so she didn’t stain her new skirt) in order to swing the little mallet.

“I don’t think so,” said Maura thoughtfully. “After you left Mithrandir chided them terribly for making you ‘relive the tragic events that lead to your fostering with the elves’ and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen the three of them look so shame-faced in my life.”

“Ah, that explains the apology earlier,” she said. Her ball rolled across the lawn and through a hoop. All of the mallets, balls, and hoops are perfectly sized for the halflings which meant she felt like she was playing with a child’s toy.

She resolved to make an effort to be kind to Maura’s cousins...and to subtly try to figure out who was who.

It took a few days of studious observations but soon she was able to put a name to each face. Fetlik was wider than he was tall and, like Maura, a bit more serious than the other two. Unlike Maura, however, he was prone to asking awkward questions. Ban told her that his name meant “fatty” in Westron and after that She tried to only call him Fredegar. He only waved her off and insisted that he be called “Fetlik.” It seemed that the nickname “fatty” didn’t hold any negative connotations to the halflings.

Kali was the brains of the group. Quick-witted and humorous. He was something of the leader telling the other halflings what to do--even Maura. 

Finally, Raza was the youngest. He was definitely impulsive but also kind. It was hilarious watching him interact with Mithrandir because he clearly irritated Mithrandir to no end.

When they learned that Ban and Maura were teaching her Westron they decided to become unofficial assistant teachers. Fetlik gave her a crash course on food vocabulary; Kali taught her how to introduce herself and ask simple questions and Raza taught her songs. It turned out that most of the songs were drinking songs but they were fun to sing and if she started humming one, she would soon get four halflings singing and dancing. 

Ban and his sisters made themselves scarce while Maura's guests were visiting. She mentioned this to Ban one morning as he quietly (and quickly) tugged some weeds out of the dew soaked ground. Bashfully he told her that it wasn't his place to be so forward when Mr. Maura had guests. It was the first time she really realized that Ban and Meie weren't friends of Maura, they were servants. Maura was friendly and kind to them but he was still their employer. She asked if she could visit Ban's family and see his sisters. He said that their smial wasn't fit for a lady like herself. After that, he gathered up his tools and wished her a good morning before leaving. Charlotte sat on the bench in the garden for a long time that morning, staring down the road in front of the garden feeling keenly homesick and deeply sad.

One evening, after Mithrandir retired to bed early, the halflings started a singing contest. Each one trying to top the other with song. Charlotte was wearing her second new dress (one made of lilac and yellow cloth). Maura asked her to dance and she accepted. She half expected it to be the stomping jumping sort of dancing she was used to with her niece and nephew but Maura was nimble and coordinated. Even though she was well over two feet taller than he was, he expertly led her around the room in a lively dance. She was breathless and laughing by the time Fetlik and Raza finished their song.

Kali was the next to dance with her and Raza after that. Fetlik kept up the singing. Maura grabbed her hand for a second dance as soon as Raza was done. Kali and Raza danced with each other. They both tried to lead and end up stepping on bare feet and squabbling but they kept time to the fast-paced beat of the song nonetheless.

For the first evening in a long time, she found herself laughing and having fun. It had been almost four weeks since she put on the ring in the antique shop in Glasgow and found herself on a hillside in the pouring rain. It hadn’t been easy adjusting to life in Arda, but she was starting to feel a little less homesick.

Once everyone was tired of dancing she followed Maura into one of the pantries and he pulled down pies, cakes, bread, cheese, meat, and eggs. He begged her to teach his cousins the art of sandwich making and soon she had three new members of the Halfling Sandwich Lover Society. 

It was late when she finally went to bed. She couldn’t help but smile as she changed her clothes and fell into bed.

The next morning it was raining so it was, of course, the morning that Mithrandir announced that he would be leaving for a few days to meet his friend. 

Maura looked concerned but Mithrandir waved off his queries. 

“Charlotte and I will be back soon enough. You’re not my only friend in these parts, Maura Labingi.”

Maura looked chastised and Raza (after Maura reluctantly translated it) teased him about this for the rest of breakfast. “You’re not my only cousin in these parts, Maura Labingi. This isn’t my only butter knife in these parts, Maura Labingi. That isn’t my only smoking jacket in these parts, Maura Labingi.”

He only stopped when an exasperated Mithrandir threatened to throw him out the kitchen window into the rain.

Charlotte decided to wear the red and green dress with the stockings from Bree and her trainers from home. Over that she put on her coat, zipped to her chin. Maura brought her a rucksack with a sleeping roll tied to the bottom with leather straps. 

“The bedroll will be a little short, but if you curl up it should be suitable,” he said apologetically. 

She thanked him with a smile. She’d seen a different, more carefree side of him since his cousins arrived. He had been less serious and anxious and she thought that it did him good. She told him so and he blushed. He mumbled to thank her for her dance the night before and then scurried away.

Thanks to Meie, Charlotte, and Mithrandir had a hamper full of food to carry with them. Mithrandir carried it in one hand and his staff in the other. 

The halflings said goodbye at the door; Raza was missing but Charlotte asked Maura to give him a goodbye from her. Mithrandir said that he thought that the two of them would be gone for four days and by the time they returned, the cousins will have left already.

The rain had tapered off to a steady drizzle as Charlotte and Mithrandir set off down the road. At least it was warmer than it was four weeks ago the last time she set off in the rain. 

The hill Maura lives in was quite tall and several families of halflings lived there. The road switch backed down the hill and as they descended they passed the front gardens of various other halfling households. Towards the bottom of the hill Goudsbloem was waiting under an umbrella to wave goodbye outside of her father’s house.

“Goodbye, Charlotte!” she called.

“Oant sjen,” Charlotte responded in Westron. 

Goudsbloem grinned proudly.

From there the road sloped down towards a meandering river known as It Wetter in Westron. According to Ban the river's name meant “The Water.” She’d giggled when he told her the name and when she explained what it sounded like to her ears “it wetter” he had had a good chuckle along with her. There was an arched stone bridge that spanned the river. As they reached the bridge they were surprised to find Raza sitting there, huddled up in a gray jacket against the rain. He hopped up when he saw them approaching.

“Hallo Goeiemoarn,” Charlotte said in Westron. She wished she knew how to tell him in Westron that she would miss him and that it had been nice to meet him. Back at Maura’s smial, Maura had helped to translate her goodbyes.

“Hello, Charlotte,” he responded, nervous.

Mithrandir asked him something with an impatient tone. Raza looked at his feet and then up at her. With a burst, he suddenly unleashed a torrent of speech. Mithrandir didn’t respond but raised an eyebrow. Raza’s face looked worried.

“What’s wrong, Mithrandir?” Charlotte asked.

“It would seem that Raza is concerned with the state of his cousin’s heart.”

“Maura’s heart? What’s wrong is he ill?”

“Lovesick, apparently,” said Mithrandir dryly.

“Lovesick?”

“Raza believes that you are the cause.”

“Me?!” Charlotte cried.

“He has come to petition you to be kind to his cousin when you inevitably break his heart.”

“I...what?” Charlotte was still trying to wrap her head around the idea of Maura being lovesick over her.

Raza wrung his hands and started talking again. He gestured his hand at her and pointed back towards Maura’s home. Then he frowned and mimed rocking a baby with a worried look on his face.

She gaped at him.

Mithrandir’s impatience was in full force. “Mr. Tûk says that men and halflings have married before but that he fears that the gossip in Sûzat would, how did he put it? Cut you to the quick and be harmful to any of your children.”

“Children?”

“Yes,” said Mithrandir. “That would be the hypothetical offspring you might share with Maura.”

“Oh. My. Goodness,” she said.

“Raza Tûk is a fool who makes it his business to interfere in the lives of others,” said Mithrandir.

Even though Raza couldn’t speak elvish, he shrunk back in the face of Mithrandir’s glare.

“Is Maura in love with me?!” Charlotte was shocked. Shad no idea how to respond.

“So Raza seems to believe.” Mithrandir could barely contain the contempt in his voice.

Charlotte had no idea how to respond to this turn of events. Maura had been kind to her and an exemplary host but in love? With her? She knew that she certainly wasn’t in love with him. She barely knew him. She’d only been his guest for a little less than three weeks.

Raza crossed his arms over his chest and glared up at her. He was, she could tell, fiercely protective of his older cousin.

“Um, I’m not in love with Maura,” Charlotte said. “I don’t have any plans to marry him, much less have babies with him. Tell Raza that he doesn’t have to worry about that. If Maura really does love me, he can say something himself. And I will be kind. I’m not a monster.”

Mithrandir snorted. He looked down at Raza and delivered a scathing (and lengthy) reply. Raza turned bright red and shuffled his bare feet. Rain dripped down his curly head.

“What did you tell him?” she asked. She hadn’t caught a word of Mithrandir’s diatribe in Westron.

“I reminded him that he is hardly an expert in affairs of the heart and that by speaking to you out of turn he has potentially caused irreparable damage to his relationship with his cousin.”

“Ouch,” she said with a wince. She patted Raza’s shoulder and in her (very stilted) Westron she said, “All going to be good and you good…halfling to Maura.”

“A noble sentiment that this fool of a Tûk does not deserve,” said Mithrandir.

Mithrnandir’s disdain for the young halfling would have been comical if not for the forlorn expression on Raza’s face.

“I be no telling Maura,” Charlotte said, stumbling through the phrase in Westron.

He bowed low. “Thank you, Miss Charlotte,” he said. Then he turned and ran away from them at full speed.

“Well, now things are going to be terribly awkward when we get back,” she said as they started down the road again.

“I think that Raza will keep his erstwhile disclosure secret from Maura. And for his part, if Maura does harbor feelings for you, I do not think that he will profess them to you.”

“Do humans and halflings often, uh, you know…” she gestured vaguely.

“Halflings are men,” corrected Mithrandir. “But no,” he continued, “There are rarely marriages between the big folk and the little folk. Marriages between elves and men are more common.”

“Like Beren and Luthien?” she perked up thinking of the book from Maura’s study.

“I see you have been reading,” saidMithrandir.

“It’s the only book I can read,” she said. “It’s a lovely story though. It’s so romantic. Do elves and men often fall in love?”

“No, it is rare.”

“But more common than, uh, regular-sized humans and halflings?”

He nodded. “There have been few great marriages between elves and men celebrated in the lore of the elves. There have been others but they have been largely forgotten to time. The human partner in these marriages lives for such a short time and the elf spouse often fades in grief.”

“Fades?” she asked.

“Their soul departs their body.”

“Oh,” she said. “That’s really sad. And they can’t be together in death, can they? That’s why Luthien had to beg to be allowed to be mortal like Beren.”

“That is true. It is deeply sad.”

Charlotte sighed and pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders. She hadn’t meant for the conversation to take such a depressing turn. “So...where are we going anyway?” she asked, hoping to change the subject.

“To Stony Ford--Sarn Ford the halflings call it. It’s the southernmost border of Sûzat. An ancient place full of memories long forgotten by the halflings who dwell there now.”

“What do you mean?”

Mithrandir leaned on his staff as he walked, the hamper of food swinging from his arm. “Four thousand years ago the elves fought a battle against Sauron there. This was not Sûzat at that time but a far-flung corner of the elven kingdom of Eregion.”

“Air-egg-ee-on,” She sounded out the word. “Land of Holly?”

Mithrandir gestured to a hedge of tall bushes with waxy green leaves with sharp points. “Some called it Hollin after the many holly trees that grew there. They still grow here and there to this day. But this was, in truth, the far north-west corner of that ancient kingdom. A rural land filled with forests and not much else.”

For a good hour, they walked in companionable silence. The rain let up and she unzipped her coat. She looked around at the rolling fields tended by docile halflings. A warm breeze had chased away the clouds and the sun shone high and brilliant in the sky. There were snug little smials cut into the hillsides and stone cottages with thatched roofs wherever there wasn’t a hillside to build into. It was hard to imagine the bucolic landscape--dotted with farms, windmills, fields, pastures, and gardens--as the home of lofty and elegant elves from the book about Beren and Luthien. 

“This doesn’t seem like a very elvish place,” she said.

Mithrandir laughed. “No, I suppose it doesn’t now. However, the world was a very different place four thousand years ago. Numenor still lay in the west.”

“Were you around back then?” she asked, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye.

“Goodness no, Charlotte! How old do you take me for?”

“Older than you look,” she said.

He paused and then said, “Quite right. But no, I was not here then. Eregion was ruled by Celebrimbor grandson of Fëanor and by Galadriel and Celeborn who now reside in Lothlorien.”

“Wait, wasn’t Galadriel one of the elves you talked about the other week?”

He nodded. “You have a good memory, Charlotte. Indeed, this is the same Galadriel of whom we spoke previously.”

“So...did they all live in holes in the ground?” She turned to look at a smial as she walked past it. A tubby halfling woman was sweeping the yard. She stopped to stare at them as they passed. Mithrandir tipped his hat to her and she gave a small smile, mollified.

“No, they lived in the city of Ost-in-Edhil, Fortress of the Elves. If you followed this road southeast for several days you would reach the point of land where the Sirannon and Glanduin rivers meet. There, a hundred miles west of the ancient dwarf city of Khazad-dûm--known as Hadhodrond to the elves of that ancient land--lies the location of Ost-in-Edhil. All that can be found there is a thick holly forest, they say.”

“What happened to it?”

“The Enemy razed it to the ground. Celebrimbor was slain and Galadriel and Celeborn fled through the Misty Mountains to the forest of Lorien.”

She shivered. “Is that what could happen here?”

Mithrandir nodded.

“Is that where we’re going? To the ruined city?”

“No, we are headed to a ford in the River Baranduin--the same river we crossed when we entered Sûzat two weeks ago. From where we crossed it, it flows south. The road we are on cuts southeast across Sûzat some hundred miles. Long ago the Enemy was driven back from these lands starting with a victory at Sarn Ford. Men of the West, from Numenor, sailed up the Baranduin and forced him back. It was perhaps the greatest victory achieved in battle during the war of the elves. It changed the tide of the war.”

“Wow,” she said.

“There is nothing left to commemorate that victory now,” he said. “But the legacy of that victory stretches down through history to this very day.”

A trio of tiny halfling children darted across the road ahead of them, playing a game of tag. Their laughter followed them as they continued on their way.

Mithrandir was in the mood for telling stories and with little prodding on Charlotte’s part, told her fascinating tales from the long-forgotten kingdom of Eregion. These tales, he confessed, he had only learned second or third hand, but that did not diminish his ability to spin a good story. Time passed quickly as they walked and Charlotte soaked up every word of every story he told her.

Truthfully she wondered how much of his stories were fact and how much was pure fiction. He claimed that Eregion existed four thousand years ago. Listening to his stories about the intimate motivations and decisions in the life of Celebrimbor and his court, it did not seem like all of that time had passed. She thought it would rather be like someone sharing casual stories about Julius Cesar as if he had only lived a few decades ago. The only explanation she could think of was that either Mithrandir was making up the details or that he was exaggerating the time scale. Probably both, she found herself thinking when he told her a story about Galadriel, an elf he claimed was still alive and a personal friend of his. However, she decided not to let her skepticism ruin a good story and kept her doubts to herself.

Two days later they approached the Baranduin. The river was broader and slower than it had been many miles to the northeast. The halfling homes and farms had dwindled over the last day of walking and by the time they reached the river they were walking through a thick forest. At least this forest didn’t feel as malicious as the forest they passed a few weeks ago on their way to Sûzat. There was no bridge but the river was shallow and she could see a large stretch of exposed bedrock spanning the width of the river. The water couldn’t be more than a foot or two deep as it flowed over the rock, making it the perfect crossing. She looked around half expecting to see an army of elves hiding in the trees. But Mithrandir was right, after four thousand years no trace of the battle remained.

Mithrandir sat down on the bank of the river to wait. She shrugged off her rucksack and plopped down next to him. 

“So where’s your friend?” she asked as Mithrandir pulled out his pipe.

“Ah, there he is.” Mithrandir pointed to the far bank of the river.

She was half expecting to see a halfling, but it was a tall man that was wading across the river. His long dark hair was tied away from his face and he had a scruffy beard. He was dressed like Halbarad and Dagoras had been dressed. Muted colors made for blending into the wild.

Mithrandir stood and called out a greeting to his friend. “Well met, Aragorn!”

“Wait, did you just say Aragorn?”

Mithrandir looked at her, confused. “I did, do you know him?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:
> 
> 1\. Kali is Merry's Westron name, Raza is Pippin's, and Fetlik means "Fatty" in Frisian and is therefore the name I've given Fatty Bolger, the often forgotten friend of Frodo who helped (along with Sam, Merry and Pippin) Frodo sneak out of the Shire.  
> 2\. I liked how in the books Merry is the organizer and planner. He's the one that makes sure all of the other hobbits stay focused and on track when it comes to sneaking out of the Shire.  
> 3\. Halbarad and Dagoras were the first characters I asked S if she wanted to ship Charlotte with. Frodo was the second one.  
> 4\. Can I just say that I love Pippin? And of course, out of all of Frodo's friends, it would be Pippin who would be impulsive (and brave!) enough to speak up. And of course Gandalf would be exasperated with him.  
> 5\. I know that Tolkiens only had a handful of marriages between elves and humans but my headcanon is that those are just the famous ones and that less famous marriages took place more frequently but still not commonly (with the offspring defaulting to the Gift of Men and being counted as humans). For example, Imrazôr and Mithrellas.  
> 6\. Charlotte (and S) are constantly boggled by the scale of time in Middle Earth. It's really amusing!  
> 7\. Charlotte was half expecting Gandalf's friend to be a halfling....Trotter anyone?  
> 8\. Thank you for reading! See you next week!


	10. Chapter 10

“Um…” Charlotte stammered. She’d long since decided to play dumb about any knowledge she had about how the story was supposed to unfold (which was, admittedly, almost nothing). “It sounds like the name of a friend of mine. His name is, uh, Tarragon…”

Inwardly she cringed. Surely Mithrandir would recognize ‘tarragon’ as the name of an herb and call her bluff. He narrowed his eyes at her but didn’t press the matter. 

Aragorn had reached their side of the bank, the water sloshing around his knees. He climbed out of the water and reached for Mithrandir, embracing him in a hug. “Well met, friend,” he said.

Mithrandir returned the hug.

Aragorn turned to Charlotte and pressed a fist to his chest and bowed. The same sort of greeting used by Halbarad and Dagoras. “Well met, stranger,” he said.

“Well met?” Charlotte replied, clumsily copying his bow.

“This is Charlotte Williams,” Mithrandir said. “She is a stranger to this world.”

Aragorn tipped his head to the side and regarded her with a keen gaze before saying, “I am Aragorn, son of Arathorn. Welcome to Arda.”

“Thanks,” Charlotte said. She was surprised both that Mithrandir was immediately forthcoming with his friend and by the fact that Aragorn had taken her introduction in stride. 

He was incredibly tall. Taller even than Mithrandir. At least six and a half feet tall, which was a full foot taller than she was. Dark hair, light brown skin and startlingly gray eyes. He was quite handsome (under a lot of scruff and dirt). A shower and a haircut (or even just a trim and a shave) would do wonders for him, she thought. He was powerfully built, too. Lean but not thin. His arms and calves were thick and muscled, and his chest was broad and strong. He could crush her in an instant. One word from Mithrandir and he probably would.

He smiled, however, and his eyes were kind. “Come, let us make a fire and share a meal.”

“And dry those boots,” said Mithrandir, his eyes twinkling as he poked Aragorn wet boots with the end of his staff. 

They worked together to make a fire on the rocky bank of the river. Charlotte stepped back, feeling superfluous. It was clear that these men had made many fires together. Aragorn collected the wood, tossing deadwood in a pile beside the ground Mithrandir had cleared. Mithrandir arranged the wood and lit the fire. It was soon crackling merrily. Mithrandir opened the hamper and took out bread, apples, and three smoked sausages. Charlotte turned to search for good roasting sticks but found that Aragorn already had three sticks in hand and was sharpening one with a glinting, sharp knife.

“Thanks,” she said as he handed her the freshly sharpened stick.

“You are welcome, Charlotte Williams,” he said.

“Just Charlotte is fine,” she said.

“Then you are welcome, Charlotte.”

In short order they were settled around the fire, sausages roasting. Aragorn took his boots off and propped them up in front of the fire to dry.

“What is the news in the wide world?” Mithrandir asked.

“There is growing unrest in Dunland,” said Aragorn. “The Dunlendings have long resented the Rohirrim and it seems that this flicker of ire is being flamed into outright detest and hatred.”

“Flamed by whom?”

Aragorn shook his head. “I do not know. Perhaps by servants of the Enemy, but I do not believe that they would operate so openly this far from their master.”

“I fear those days have passed us,” said Mithrandir. “The servants of the Enemy will be walking in boldness in the coming months. That which the Enemy seeks has been found.”

“Truly?” Aragorn’s head snapped up. 

With a heavy sigh, Mithrandir nodded.

“That is ill news indeed.” Aragorn frowned, rubbing his jaw.

Charlotte rolled her stick between her hands, staring at it as her sausage roasted over the glowing coals. She wondered if Aragorn knew about the Ring already. She couldn’t remember if he had recognized it in the movie. At least, she couldn’t remember any scenes where someone had to sit him down and explain it to him. 

“Then it was in the hands of our old friend all this time?” 

“He left it for his cousin some years ago.”

“He left it? Willingly?” Aragorn, who had been lounging against a bolder, sat up.

Mithrandir lifted his sausage from the fire and blew on it and then pinched it between his fingers. “It took a little persuasion, but yes, he left behind of his own accord.”

“Still he speaks of it,” Aragorn said.

“I had noticed that,” said Mithrandir. “In passing here and there in his conversation. The way one might speak of a dear and beloved friend.”

“The elves noted it, too. If it is the One—”

“It is,” interjected Mithrandir.

Aragorn nodded. “Then his affection for it is explained.”

Charlotte shifted nervously. She looked around, half expecting the riders in black to burst out of the trees on their horses at any moment. “Do you think we should be talking about you-know-what like this? What if there are spies around?”

Aragorn leaned back on the boulder and chuckled. “Your friend is wise and cautious, Mithrandir!” To her, he said, “Any friend that Mithrandir would bring to a meeting such as this is one he trusts completely and one that I can trust without reservation.”

“I didn’t mean that I was the spy—but, um, thanks for trusting me—I meant there could be spies hiding. In the woods?” She gestured vaguely in the direction of the trees.

“I searched the woods before I approached you—on both sides of the ford. We are safe here.”

“Well, we have to be careful,” she said. She pulled her own sausage out of the fire and poked it. It felt warm enough at last.

“Then let us talk of other things,” Aragorn said agreeably. “Now tell me, Charlotte, from whence have you come?”

She glanced at Mithrandir and he gave her an encouraging nod. It seemed that he trusted Aragorn as completely as Aragorn trusted him. So she told him about the rings and pulled out her locket to show him the green ring hanging beside it on the chain. She told him about the strange woods and arriving and hiking to the Hill of Wind, about meeting Mithrandir and traveling with him to Sûzat, and about the few weeks they had spent with Maura. She left out Maura’s supposed crush on her. Whether it was true or not she suspected that Maura would be mortified to learn she had told a stranger about it.

When she finished speaking, Aragorn leaned forward, propping his elbow on his knee and resting his chin on his hand. “Now this,” he said, “Is interesting.”

“I thought you might think so,” said Mithrandir.

“Iarwain Ben-adar, Oldest and Fatherless?” said Aragron.

“Wait, who’s that?” Charlotte asked.

“He walked the hills and woods long ago--he’s even older than old,” said Aragorn. “He remembers the world before it was bent, before the sun and moon set their courses in the sky before the elves woke under the stars.”

“So he’s not an elf?” she asked.

Mithrandir spoke: “He is as much a man as you or Aragorn.”

“But how can he live so long?”

“His fate is bound up in the world he left behind. A world beyond the Void.”

“My world?” she asked.

“Perhaps your world, or perhaps another. I think that there are many worlds in those woods. Each little pool and pond leading to one or another,” said Mithrandir.

“So what does that mean? I mean, practically speaking?” Charlotte asked.

Aragorn poked the fire with a driftwood stick. “Time in Arda does not weather him; disease leaves him unscathed; the magic and enchantments of this world hold no sway over him.”

Charlotte looked at Mithrandir. “Like the, um, you-know-what?”

He nodded. “I believe that it would similarly have no effect on him.”

“No effect?” Aragorn looked intrigued.

“In Charlotte’s hands, it is an ordinary trinket. 

“Indeed? This is strange but good news, friend,” said Aragorn.

“I told him—Mithrandir’s friend—that I would help him get rid of it,” Charlotte said.

“You are brave, Charlotte Williams,” said Aragorn. “And a true friend.”

Awkwardly avoiding eye contact, Charlotte held her skewered sausage over the coals again. “So this other guy, Yar-wane? He can’t die because he’s supposed to be in another world and not in Arda?”

“Iarwain Ben-Adar is much like an elf in that respect,” said Mithrandir. “Although their fate is tied to the fate of this world.”

“What does that mean?”

“When a man dies, his soul is taken beyond the Circles of the World. No one knows where it goes. Some say that it is taken into the very presence of the One. That men will join the Music when Arda is remade,” said Aragorn. “Elves, however, do not leave this world. When their bodies are slain their souls go to the Halls of Mandos in the Uttermost West. There they rest a time before they are rebodied and live in Aman, the Blessed Realm, until it is time for the world to be remade.”

She rubbed her forehead. “That sounds complicated. But this other guy, this Iarwain Ben-adar, he’s a man but he can’t actually die or get old so he’s like elves?”

“That is one way to look at it,” said Mithrandir. “His fate is tied to his own world. He is but a guest in ours. Although I suspect that like elves, a mortal wound might be sufficient to free his body from this world.”

“You think that if he gets injured enough to die in this world, he’ll go home to his own?”

Mithrandir nodded. “But in that instance, I believe that he would return to his world as he left this one.”

“So, he’d go back dead?”

“It is likely,” said Aragorn.

“So he--and by extension, me--is stuck here, forever? Like, literally forever?”

“So it would seem,” says Mithrandir.

“So I’m stuck? If I can’t get back to that wood and find the pond of water that leads to my world, I’m stuck here?” She closed her fist around her locket and the green ring hanging beside it. “But the yellow ring is gone. If I don’t have it, I'm pretty sure I can’t get back to that woods.”

“Yes,” said Mithrandir gravely.

Charlotte took a deep breath, processing his response.

“What happens if I get home somehow? What would happen if I found the yellow ring?”

He considered the question and said, “I believe that if you were to return to your own world you would find that no time had passed. You would have left and returned in the blink of an eye.”

Her chest felt tight at the thought of never seeing her family again. She drew her knees up and pressed her face into them. She tried to remember her last conversation with her mum. Did she remember to tell her that she loved her? Would Thomas and Amelia even remember her when they grew up? Or were they still so young that they’d only remember their aunt from pictures or other people’s stories? It was too painful to think about. With great effort, she lifted her head and put those thoughts aside.

She had lost her appetite, but she forced herself to finish her sausage anyway—so that she’d have something to keep herself busy. As she ate she stared at the fire. She tried to pretend that her eyes were stinging with tears because of the smoke. 

Aragorn and Mithrandir left her alone, letting her grapple with her thoughts as privately as she could under the circumstances. They had resumed their conversation about Maura’s ring.

“He has made up his mind to take a trip out of the Shire,” Mithrandir said.

“To where?” asked Aragorn.

“To Imladris to seek the counsel of Elrond.”

“When does Maura intend to set out?”

“At the end of September,” Charlotte said. Her sausage was gone and she stabbed her roasting stick into the coals.

Aragorn shot a sharp look at Mithrandir. “Is this plan wise? The Enemy grows stronger by the day and his spies are probing farther and farther west.”

“That’s what I said. I think he should just leave. Just slip away in the middle of the night. He could probably be gone for days before anyone noticed.” The flames licked up the side of her stick and she pulled it out of the fire. A spark glowed on the blackened tip of the stick.

Mithrandir sighed. “Maura’s point about the speed at which gossip travels in the Shire is a good one, Charlotte. But I do agree with you that he should leave sooner than the autumn.”

Aragorn thoughtfully stacked river rocks, one on top of the other. “What if Maura leaves in September as planned, but the...danger...has already been secured in the House of Elrond?”

“Ah, I see,” said Mithrandir slowly. “A ruse then?”

“If Maura will allow it,” said Aragorn.

“A ruse?” Charlotte asked.

“Would you, Charlotte, be willing to secret away with me, to Imladris, well ahead of Maura’s intended departure? You would bear the burden, which does not hold sway over you. I do not ask this lightly, but I fear what would happen should the Enemy or his spies set upon the halfling.”

Charlotte thought it over. The plan had merit. She and Aragorn could take the Ring to Imladris much sooner than September. Then, by the time Maura and Ban got around to leaving in September, the Ring would already be safe. Any spies would, hopefully, assume that Maura still had the Ring. They wouldn’t know that the Ring had already left Sûzat months before. The biggest problem, of course, was that she didn’t think that Maura would be keen to hand the ring over. She remembered how reluctant he had been to let her hold it in his study a few weeks before. She didn’t think he could bear it if she took it and left Sûzat altogether. 

On the other hand, the thought of the riders in black hunting him down and stealing the Ring from him frightened her. He was so small and so vulnerable. Perhaps once the Ring was safely hidden away by the elves, Maura could let it be known that he didn’t have the Ring. Then maybe the black-clad riders would leave him alone. 

“We can do it,” she told them. “But first, he needs to take a bath.” She pointed at Aragorn.

He threw his head back and laughed. “My betrothed made a similar comment the last time I saw her.”

“Don’t you Ranger-men travel with soap?”

“I will make certain to smell sweeter when next we meet,” he promised.

As the fire burned low, the three discussed the plan and made refinements to it. Aragorn agreed to her suggestion that Maura could make it known a few weeks after she left Sûzat with the Ring that he didn’t have it anymore. He and Ban could spread a rumor that he’d lost it. Mithrandir was skeptical but in the end, he gave his approval to the idea. 

“How are we going to convince Maura to give up the ring in the first place?” she asked.

Mithrandir tossed another piece of driftwood onto the fire. “What do you think would be the most effective way, Charlotte?”

“I think we need to have some backup plans. First Mithrandir and I can try to explain the plan to him. If that doesn’t work, well…” here she blushed, “Apparently he’s in love with me so I can promise to marry him or something.”

Aragorn raised his eyebrows at that.

She rushed on to her last idea. “And if that all fails we can steal it.”

Mithrandir jumped to his feet and backed away and Aragorn looked shocked.

“What? What’s wrong?” she asked, panicked by their reactions.

Mithrandir vehemently shook his head. “The only reason the ring has not yet fully corrupted Maura or his cousin Bilba is the fact that they did not acquire the ring through theft or murder. The Ring wants, it yearns, to be gained at the expense of another. No, no, the ring must be freely given.”

“Okay, damn,” she said. “Scratch stealing it then, we’ll have to convince him. If we can’t do that, we’ll have to involve Ban.” 

“Ban?” asked Aragorn.

“Maura’s gardener. He’s going with Maura when Maura leaves the Shire in September,” Charlotte explained. “He’s really nice and loyal and super stubborn. If the three of us fail to convince Maura then no one will be able to convince him.”

“Do you trust him?” Aragorn asked Mithrandir.

Mithrandir considered the question and then nodded.

“That’s good enough for me,” said Aragorn.

The three of them spent the rest of the afternoon discussing the particulars of leaving Sûzat and where Mithrandir and Charlotte would meet Aragorn. She didn’t have much to contribute but she was chuffed that they valued her input enough to include her in the planning.

Once the plan had been made, Aragorn departed. Mithrandir buried the evidence of their fire in the sand and then, gathering their things, the two of them left. They walked together north, back up the road towards Maura’s smial. 

Charlotte had, what felt like, a million questions about Iarwain Ben-adar, but Mithrandir had few answers. What he knew of the man’s past he had already answered. He lived, Mithrandir said, with his wife not far from Sûzat but was not overly fond of visitors. Kind, but wary, were the words Mithrandir used to describe him. 

“Can I meet him?” she asked. She wondered if she would recognize him. She tried to remember if there had been anyone else in the antique store.

“Perhaps,” said Mithrandir, thoughtfully. “Perhaps that would not be a bad idea at all.” He didn’t elaborate and had nothing more to tell her about the mysterious man.

They walked the rest of the day in silence but when they camped that night and stretched out of the grass on the side of the road, he told her about an angelic being named Varda.

“The elves call her Elbereth, Star-Queen,” he said. 

They lay on their backs, shortly after sunset looking up at the stars flung across the sky in a dazzling display. Charlotte had never seen stars like the ones in Arda. There wasn’t any light pollution and in the dark of light, each star burned brilliantly against the velvet-black sky. 

“That is Menelmacar, the Swordsman of the Sky,” he said, pointing to one of the constellations. It was similar in shape to Orion, but it’s belt gleamed with an intensity that she had never seen on Earth. “Varda placed him there before the elves awoke. He stands guard until the final overthrow of Darkness when Arda is remade.”

“She made him?”

“Gilthoniel, Star-kindler, is another name by which she is known.”

“Stars are…” Charlotte paused. “You know that stars are giant balls of gas, like the sun, right?” She turned her head to look at him.

In the starlight, he smiled. “Arien guides the vessel of the sun through the sky and it gives light to all of Arda.”

“That sounds like a myth,” she said.

“I knew her once, long ago,” he said, his voice distant. “Ah, but I have almost forgotten it.” He pointed to another star. “That is the Star of Eärendil.”

“Is he a close personal friend as well?” Charlotte asked, a bit more peevishly than she intended. “Sorry,” she added quickly.

“The father of a friend, to be precise,” said Mithrandir.

After that, he rolled over and didn’t say anything else about the stars. Charlotte stared at the star he had pointed out above her. If she were on Earth she would have sworn he had pointed out the planet Venus. 

She didn’t know why she was so irritated by his claims about Varda and being friends with the sun. She had willingly accepted his stories of the Ring as truthful. Venus having a child wasn’t anymore far-fetched. It was, she reflected, hard to take the personification of actual scientific facts seriously. She could see the stars. They weren’t any different in Arda than they were on Earth. They were twinkling above her head as familiar (though much more brilliant without the light pollution) as they had always been her whole life long. She knew that they were balls of burning gas millions of light-years away. Unless Mithrandir meant that Varda could set off nuclear fission reactions at will, then his story was just that: a story. And yet he presented it as fact. She supposed that was what made her testy. She wasn’t a child. She didn’t need to be fed a fairy tale as truth. 

In the morning Mithrandir didn’t speak of Varda or the stars again. In fact, he stopped telling her stories altogether. Charlotte tried to fill the silence with chatter of her own, but she quickly ran out of things to say. 

They kept a brisk pace on their return journey. It had taken two and a half days to reach Sarn Ford and only one and a half to return. Her feet hurt and she felt grimy. Mithrandir was grim and hardly said two words to her. He seemed to have taken her rejection of Varda personally and she didn’t know how to apologize to him.

At least Maura was glad to see them both. He apologized that they had just missed his cousins as he ushered them into his smial. 

Charlotte expressed disappointment, but secretly she was glad to have missed them. She wasn’t sure she could look Raza in the eyes and she’d been worrying about how she would convince Maura to give up the Ring with his cousins around.

After a bath and supper, she excused herself to her room and fell asleep at once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't going to be the first time that Charlotte has to grapple with the idea of Eru, the Valar etc being real and not just myths. I think it's fascinating to look at how someone who is not religious in our world (like S) would react to being in a world where she can interact with people who have met the Valar (or are angelic beings themselves!). Also, as nice as Gandalf is, he is 500% capable of being sulky and aloof, haha.
> 
> I hope that the explanation of what it means for Charlotte to be in Middle Earth made sense! I wanted there to be consequences to her appearance and to raise the stakes. I also wanted things to tie neatly back into the lore that I borrowed from Narnia. Iarwain Ben-Adar seemed to fit really well into the lore so I decided to make him a foreigner to Arda just like Charlotte. For those of you that recognize his Sindarin name, I hope you got a little chuckle out of the idea of this character being from another world. In a later chapter I'll go more into detail and into his backstory. I'm also going to revisit the fates of men and elves and what that means for Charlotte (being stuck in between the two fates, essentially) throughout the rest of the story.
> 
> Let me know if my eyes skipped over any stray you/your or present tense swaps. After chapter 14 I largely switched to writing third person past tense so we're almost past the danger zone!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I quoted more dialogue directly from Fellowship.

In the morning Charlotte put on a clean dress and ran her fingers through her hair. It was still a little damp from her bath the night before so she left it hanging around her shoulders and ventured out to find breakfast. Maura was eating in the kitchen all alone.

“Good morning,” he said cheerfully. He hopped up and pulled out a chair for her. “Meie has taken the morning off to visit a friend, so I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with my cooking for the day. Bacon?”

“Thank you,” she said, leaning to the side so he could slide a rasher of bacon onto her plate. “This looks delicious.” Indeed, it did. The table was practically groaning with food. 

“Oh well, I do like to take a turn in the kitchen once in a while,” he said, a little flustered at her praise. He waved a hand towards the sink piled with dishes. “Best that Meie won’t know about the mess I’ve made.”

“It will be our secret,” she said, fighting a smile.

He grinned at her and resumed his seat across from her. “Tea?” 

She nodded and held out her cup.

“Mithrandir is holed up in his room. I’d think he was sleeping but I’m not sure that wizards actually sleep.”

Having lain next to a snoring Mithrandir on several occasions, she knew very well that wizards slept and she told Maura so. He laughed, delighted at her comment.

“I think I’ve made a mess of things though,” she said, lowering her voice and glancing towards the door.

“What happened?” Maura asked. Concern was evident on his face. He leaned closer to her.

Quietly she told him about the conversation about the stars. Maura frowned and Charlotte felt her heart sink. Maura looked worried and she felt as if she’d really made a mess of things.

“Elbereth is…” he began. He cleared his throat and looked at the doorway. He leaned practically across the entire table, and whispered, “She is quite holy, you know. Elves and wizards hold her in quite reverent respect. I assume that he found your comments a tad, well, sacrilegious.”

“Oh.” Charlotte’s shoulders dropped and she sighed. “I didn’t meant offend him.”

“It’s a bit like, well, dear me, what is the deity in your world called?”

“God?”

“It is as if someone doubted the existence of God to your face.”

Charlotte, who was agnostic, didn’t know how to respond to that. She took a long sip of tea to hide her unease. She didn’t know how Maura would react if she told him that she wasn’t exactly convinced about God’s existence either. But at least she knew what Mithrandir was so offended.

“I’ll apologize to him,” she said. “I didn’t know that he thought she was actually real. I just thought it was a story.”

“I’m sure he will understand.” Maura reached across the table to pat her hand. “Perhaps God and the Valar are the same in your world and in ours? Perhaps they are just known by different names.”

Charlotte doubted this but as it had been a long time since she’d sat through a church service and even longer since she’d cracked open a Bible she just nodded. She wasn’t ready to field questions from the inquisitive halfling about religion.

“Did I mention last night all of the trouble Raza found himself in while you were gone?”

She shook her head.

Laughing, Maura happily told her about Raza’s misadventures with a hog in the village. He’d accidentally set it free and had to chase it up and down the green in the center of the village for a few hours to the laughter of his cousins and the consternation of the hog’s owner. 

Charlotte giggled at the story and Maura beamed, pleased that he had successfully distracted her.

“So, how are your plans for leaving going?” she asked.

He sobered. He’d been in the middle of constructing a sandwich with bacon and three eggs. “Well enough. Raza and Fetlik told a few halflings down at the Green Dragon that I was looking to sell my smial.”

“That's progress,” she said encouragingly.

“Yes, it is.” His hand reached down and patted his pocket. The pocket where he kept the Ring.

“But I still think you’re being too slow,” she said.

He frowned. “You’ve said that before.”

In for a penny, Charlotte thought. She took a deep breath to steel her nerves. “Mithrandir and I met with one of his Ranger friends. The Enemy is closer than we expected. We need to reevaluate your plan. Speed things up.”

Maura put his sandwich down. The cheerfully, jolly halfling from only a few minutes before was gone. His expression was shuttered, closed. “Mithrandir liked my plan well enough before.”

“Well, that was before we knew that the Enemy was getting closer.”

“And I suppose you have a better plan?” he snapped.

Charlotte crossed her arms. She tried to look as calm and reasonable as possible. “What if you were a decoy and someone else took the Ring there ahead of time? Then you wouldn’t be in such danger.”

Maura jumped back, his chair clattering to the floor. He clutched at the pocket of his waistcoat. “You want it for yourself!”

“What? No!”

“You lied to Mithrandir. You want to take the Ring! You’re a servant of the Enemy after all!”

“No, no!” she cried, holding out her hands beseechingly. “That’s not what I meant. I want to protect you.”

Suddenly, Maura shoved his hand into his pocket. He spun around on his heel and darted towards the door. He’d put the Ring on. He’d forgotten that she could still see him.

Charlotte lunged across the room and grabbed him by the back of his waistcoat. He squealed in surprise. Failing and scratching, he kicked at her stomach, trying to get away. She staggered to her feet, pinning his arms to his side. He howled in protest. 

Wryly she thought that babysitting a tantruming four-year-old Thomas hadn't quite prepared her for a spitting mad halfling.

“What’s going on in here?” roared Mithrandir, charging into the room.

“He put the Ring on,” Charlotte said, struggling to keep a grip on the desperate halfling.

“Maura Labingi!” Mithrandir seemed to grow in size and power, filling up the little kitchen with his wrath. “Remove that Ring!”

Maura went limp in her arms. She loosened her grip enough so that he could slide the Ring off. From the relief on Mithrandir’s face, Charlotte could tell when Maura had removed it. She dropped the halfling unceremoniously onto the floor. Maura crawled across the floor and onto a chair, hanging his head like a shamed schoolboy.

“What was that?” Charlotte asked. She prodded her cheek. Maura had scratched her and it stung.

“I forgot you could see me,” Maura said, sullen.

“The magic of the Ring holds no sway over Charlotte.” Mithrandir pulled a stool beside Maura and sat down. He put a hand on the halfling's shoulder, both comforting and confining him. 

Charlotte crouched down in front of him and took one of his smaller hands. “That’s why I’m the perfect person to take it and sneak it out of here ahead of time.”

“And you have my word that Charlotte will return the Ring to you once you reach Imladris,” said Mithrandir.

Charlotte was surprised by this, but she schooled her expression so that her surprise didn’t show on her face. She supposed that it made sense. In the movies, it was Frodo who took the Ring to the volcano (that is if Frodo and Maura were the same person). She frowned.

Maura chewed his bottom lip. He looked miserable. He pulled his hand out of her grasp and rocked back and forth in his chair. He held the Ring and rubbed it between his fingers. Then, screwing up his face, and with great effort, he dropped the Ring onto the tile floor. With a sob, he leaped to his feet and ran out of the room.

“Quickly now,” said Mithrandir. “Before he can change his mind.”

She bent down and picked up the Ring. She moved to put it into her pocket but Mithrandir laid a hand on her arm. 

“Hang it beside your other ring. Be wary, Charlotte. The Ring will seek every opportunity to escape you.”

Charlotte unfastened the chain and slipped the ring onto it. The green ring hung on one side of the locket, the gold Ring on the other. She fastened the necklace around her neck again and dropped it inside her shirt.

“At least I didn’t have to marry him?” she said, trying to lighten the mood with a joke.

Mithrandir did not smile.

———

Mithrandir decided it was best to leave immediately. He didn’t want Maura around Charlotte and the Ring any longer than was necessary. Charlotte was not looking forward to more walking but she recognized the wisdom in Mithrandir’s plan. 

Maura had retreated to his room and shut the door, so Charlotte wasn’t able to ask if she could keep the rucksack and bedroll. She had a five-pound note and a handful of coins in the bottom of her purse and she put them on the bedside table. She knew that the banknote was probably useless in payment for the rucksack, but she hoped that he would appreciate the gesture at least. Her red and green dress was still dirty from the trip to and from Sarn Ford. The lilac and yellow dress seemed too fancy and delicate for traveling and her trousers would probably draw a lot of attention to her. The red dress from Bree would have to do. At least Goudsbloem had taken in the waist. 

She left both of her new dresses behind. She felt bad about leaving behind the dirty red and green dress but she didn’t want to carry dirty clothes with her. She kept the underclothes (chemises, bloomers, and stockings). Those she rolled as small as possible and stuffed into the rucksack on top of her folded clothes from home. Her water bottle was already tied to the outside of the bag. Inside she added her keyring with penknife and torch, her lighter, her pens, and hair ties and all of her bobby pins, and her now empty coin purse. Her bag was made of questionable pleather and had begun to split apart at the seams. She set it on the bedside table next to the money.

Her camera bag was in better shape. She unzipped it and looked at the batteries and USB cable. The batteries were useless without a camera and the USB cable was so short she couldn’t even use it as a rope. She sighed and took them out and set them next to her other bag and the money. She wondered if Maura could sell them or give them away. She’d have to warn him not to try to burn them.

The hair oil was also (sadly) left behind. She didn’t want to risk it spilling in her bag and coating everything with a slippery film. She grabbed large chunks of curls and plaited her hair out of her face, securing it with a hair elastic. Hopefully the elves of Imladris had curly hair, too, and they’d be willing to give her a similar product when she arrived.

She slung the rucksack over her shoulders and carried the camera bag into the kitchen. Maura had several well-stocked pantries and she knew she could find plenty of food to take. She felt guilty at the thought of plundering his cupboards but it seemed that Mithrandir had the same idea. He was repacking the hamper Meie had given them.

“Ah, here, fill your bag as well,” he said. “It is a long journey to Imladris.”

Under Mithrandir’s direction, she wrapped several small loaves of dense bread in a cloth and packed that into the camera bag. Around the bread, she squeezed in apples and hard-boiled eggs. He filled a pouch with a variety of dried herbs and filled another one with salt. She found carrots and onions and stuffed them into the side pouches. Mithrandir had packed smoked sausages, pies wrapped in cloth, more apples, and bread. 

“Are you ready to depart?” he asked.

She nodded.

Mithrandir sent her outside and he went to say goodbye to Maura. Ban was in the garden, whistling as he tended his flowers. In the few weeks since she had arrived the countryside had blossomed into a profusion of green leaves and brightly colored flowers. It was the beginning of May and the sun was bright and the breeze was warm and the promise of a sunny and cheerful summer was all around.

“Hello there, Miss Charlotte,” said Ban. He stood up and wiped his dirty hands on his apron. Spotting the rucksack on her back and the camera bag slung over her shoulder his ready smile faltered. “Are you leaving so soon?”

“We have to go,” she said sadly. She didn’t know how much information it was safe to share with Ban. She was worried, though, that Maura might tell him that she stole the Ring. The thought of Ban thinking poorly of her was strangely painful. “I’ll see you in the fall.”

“Will you be coming back then? Will you make the journey with us?”

She shook her head. Tentatively she said, “I’m going ahead. I’ve got the, um, Thing.”

He tensed, staring at her, his hand slipping to his side where the spade leaned against the fence. “Do you?” 

Mithrandir ducked as he stepped out of the smial, donning his hat as he straightened. “We must be off, Charlotte.”

“Mithrandir knows all about it,” she said quickly, hoping to put Ban at ease.

“Does he?” Ban’s hand was on the spade. She didn’t know what he planned to do, but the fierce look on his face was enough to frighten her. Ban, she saw, was loyal first and foremost to Maura.

“Yes, Banazîr Galbasi,” said Mithrandir, kindly but firmly. “For your protection, we are leaving.”

“She says she’s got the… the Thing,” Ban said. He hadn’t let go of the spade.

Mithrandir crouched and looked Ban in the eyes. “Yes, she does. But no one must know. No one. Do you understand Banazîr? Your safety and the safety of your master depend upon it.”

Ban shifted so he could look around Mithrandir’s wide-brimmed blue hat. He nodded once to Charlotte and relaxed his grip on the spade. “Be safe out there in the wilds. I’ve heard stories about trolls and worse out there.”

“I’ll be safe,” promised Charlotte. “I’ll be with one of Mithrandir’s friends.”

Mithrandir clapped Ban on the shoulder. “She won’t be in the slightest danger.”

Charlotte offered him a smile. “See? I’ll get there without a scratch on me.” Ban eyed her cheek suspiciously. Charlotte remembered that Maura had scratched her. She shrugged and prodded the scratch. “I already got the scratch out of the way?”

At this Ban gave a wary chuckle. 

Mithrandir gave his shoulder a squeeze before he stood. “Are you ready, Charlotte?”

“Yes, let’s go.”

Instead of following the roads as they had done before, Mithrandir struck out across country. He kept to the fields, forests, and hedges. She soon realized that he was a master at traveling undetected. He taught her a few of his tricks of the trade as they traveled. She learned to keep a screen of vegetation between herself any potential observers as much as possible. He showed her to move in the shadows and to stop every fifty or so meters to listen. They listened both for the sound of halflings and for the sounds of animals and birds. Despite his evasive route, they moved swiftly. The nights were cold and unlike their journey into Sûzat, he did not light any fires at night t o warm them. They woke up when it was still dark and set out with the first gray light of dawn. At night they keep walking until the dusk was so dark she was stumbling. They huddled together in the shelter of a tree or the bracken on a hillside and ate in the dark before sleeping.

She tried to find the right opportunity to apologize, but Mithrandir was reticent and withdrawn. He hardly said more than two words to her as they walked and only responded to her with grunts or nods. She couldn't tell if he was mad at her, or preoccupied with his thoughts. Above all else, however, he kept a swift pace. In that way, they left Sûzat in only two days. They crossed the bridge at night and followed the road east by the light of the moon. Soon they came upon the dark and ominous forest again. It was so dark between the trees that it seemed to soak up the moon and starlight.

“This forest is ancient and perilous,” said Mithrandir in a voice barely above a whisper. “But it is the home of Iarwain Ben-adar, the other of your kind. I hope that we might find answers here.”

She nodded, staring up at the trees. They leered over her, foreboding. 

Mithrandir nimbly hopped over the stone fence which separated the forest from the road. Charlotte followed, hauling herself over. He tapped his staff on the ground. The tip of it glowed faintly, casting a circle of pale light, like starlight, around him. In the month since she had last seen the forest, it had filled out with leaves. The trunks of the trees were thick and gnarled. Their branches were heavy with boughs, leaves, and shaggy moss. The ground was a labyrinth of twisted roots. The canopy of leaves was so dense overhead that there was little undergrowth beneath the trees. 

Leading the way, Mithrandir, and his staff plunge into the gloom. Charlotte followed. Above her the trees press down. Branches snatched at her head and clothes. Roots rose up to trip her feet. Only a few feet into the forest and it seemed to close around her. She glanced over her shoulder and she couldn’t see the road. She reached back into the rucksack and pulled out the keyring with the little torch and clicked it on. She jumped, nearly walking face-first into a branch she hadn’t seen. 

“This place is creepy,” she muttered. 

Mithrandir drew to a stop and Charlotte stood as close to him as she could without physically touching him. Then he lifted his head and began to sing:

“Ho! Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo!  
By water, wood and hill, by the reed and the willow,  
By fire, sun and moon, harken now and hear us!  
Come, Tom Bombadil, for our need is near us!”

They listened to the last echo of his song fade into the forest. There was an air of expectation.

“What’s going on? What’s going to happen?” Charlotte whispered.

Mithrandir didn’t answer, but cocked his head to the side, listening.

Then there came an answering voice, deep and glad and singing:

“Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow,  
Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow.  
None has ever caught him yet, for Tom, he is the master:  
His songs are stronger songs, and his feet are faster.”

“Who’s that?” she asked.

Mithrandir smiled. “Iarwain Ben-adar, known to some as Tom Bombadil.”

Then, bounding between the trunks of the trees came Iarwain Ben-adar. He was short and broad-shouldered with a red face and a long brown beard. He swept a battered hat with a feather stuck in the hatband off of his head and bowed. 

“Tell me what’s your trouble! What’s the matter then? Do not fear nor be alarmed, Old Tom is here at last.”

“Tom, Tom, it is good to see you again!” said Mithrandir with a welcoming laugh.

“Gandalf, well met, my friend once more,” said Tom. He put his hat back on his head. “And who is this that you have brought to my door?”

“This is Charlotte, a stranger in this land. Here at last a kindred before you stands.”

“Oh ho, merry dol! A kindred heart indeed? Now come my friend and follow on, I will take the lead.” Tom turned and marched off through the forest.

Charlotte gaped at him as he disappeared into the gloom. She and Mithrandir scrambled to keep up with him. Moments before the forest had been hemming them in, barring their way, but now it seemed as if the very branches parted before Tom, and twinkling starlight filtered down illuminating a path through the woods.

Tom sang boisterously as he tramped through the forest at a pace she and Mithrandir struggled to keep. Whenever they lost sight of him, his voice, loud and clear in song, carried back to them. 

“Hop along my dear old friend, up the forest trail,  
Tom’s going on ahead, to bring forth fresh ale.  
Down west sinks the Moon; and in the dark you will be groping.  
All around night shadows fall, then the door will be open,  
Out of the window-panes light does twinkle yellow,  
Fear no adder black! Heed no hoary willow!  
Fear neither root nor bough! Tom goes on before you,  
Hey now! Merry dol! We’ll be waiting for you!”

The path rose, sloping up before them and a river snaked down the hill, sweeping past them and dancing and foaming over the rocks as it flowed on. Her feet felt leaden from keeping up with the pace of Tom’s voice. She heard the sound of a waterfall and pressed on. Stone steps were cut into the hillside, climbing up beside the water. Above the waterfall, the grass was freshly mowed, thick and soft. The forest all around was neatly trimmed and in the faint light before a new dawn, she could see the path clearly. It was bordered with smooth, white stones, and at the top of the path, still a few hundred feet away, sat a little stone cottage with a thatched roof. Tom was standing in the doorway of the cottage, waving a greeting,

“Hey! Come derry dol! Hop along, my hearties!  
Mithrandir, Kindred! We are fond of parties.  
Now let the fun begin! Let us sing together!”

As they reached the cottage a slim woman joined Tom in the doorway. She was dressed in green and her dress shimmered in the light of the candles like dew on a spring morning. Her hair fell in yellow waves down to her waist which was belted in a gold chain hung with pendants of lilies. She stretched out an arm in welcome and sang:

“Now let the song begin! Let us sing together  
Of sun, stars, moon and mist, rain and cloudy weather,  
Light on the budding lead, dew on the feather,  
Window on the open hill, bells on the heather,  
Reeds by the shady pool, lilies on the water:  
Old Tom Bombadil and the River-daughter!” 

Her voice was both young and old and as pure as spring rain as she sang.

“Enter, good guests!” she cried, stepping back and beckoning them into the cottage. 

Charlotte followed Mithrandir inside, dumbstruck.

The cottage was filled with light. Lanterns hang from the ceiling and candles burned on every surface. A cheery fire burned in the hearth and the woman danced across the room, lightly stepping between bowls of water filled with lilies. “Come, dear folk! Laugh and be merry! I am Goldberry, daughter of the River. Fear nothing! For this day you are under the roof of Tom Bombadil!”

“Fair lady,” said Mithrandir, bowing low. “Thank you for your welcome.”

He leaned his staff and pack against the wall. Charlotte hurried to do the same with things.

“Sit and rest and I will find you food to eat.”

“Here’s my pretty lady,” said Tom warmly, sitting down. “Here’s my Goldberry clothed all in silver-green with flowers in her girdle!”

Charlotte and Mithrandir sat at the table and Goldberry busied herself at the cupboards and table. In short order, a meal of bread, cream, honeycomb, berries, and salad was set before them.

At Tom’s urging, they ate. The food was excellent and whatever was in their glasses (though it tasted like cold water) left Charlotte with warmth and buzz like wine. The sun had risen by the time they finished eating and Tom led them outside to sit on a low bench outside of the cottage door.

“It is a good day for long tales, for questions and for answers, so Tom will start the talking,” said Tom. He fell into stories about the creatures and plants in the forest, his voice sing-song or outright song in turn. Once, twice, three times, he got up and danced about as he spoke. He told them of the forest: how once it stretched far east and west, north and south and all that remained now was just this tiny sliver: a survivor. The trees remembered how vast their domain had once been and they resented the intrusion of man and halfling.

Then Tom’s stories turned to the kings of old who built the ruined towers, the Barrow-Downs. And then his tale turned older still and he spoke of a world unbent, of a time without sun or moon but only starlight. Of a time when it was he and he alone that strode across a world: oldest and fatherless.

Charlotte stared at him as he spoke and sang. His stories contained the weight of thousands and thousands of years. Is that what awaited her? She couldn’t imagine being alive for so long. She wondered if it’s his great age that had made Tom so...strange....

Goldberry flitted out of the cottage with a tray of mint tea, bread, and honeycomb. Charlotte looked up at the sky and was surprised to see that it is well past noon.

As they ate lunch it was Mithrandir’s turn to tell tales. He did not sing like Tom, but he did spin a good yarn. He filled Tom in with all of the news of the Sûzat and beyond. He went into much more detail than he ever did with Maura and it is then she realized that Tom and Mithrandir were good and very old friends. And that Tom’s stories that morning had been for her benefit alone.

Goldberry sat on the grass beside the bench. Her bare toes wiggled in the soft grass. A crown of white apple blossoms rested on her head. Tom stroked her hair as he listened to Mithrandir.

“What does it mean that you’re the River’s daughter?” Charlotte asked Goldberry while Tom listened to Mithrandir.

She looked up at Charlotte, her face was unlined and youthful but her green eyes wise and old. She tilted her head to the side and her hair, shining in the bright sun, rippled and spilled over her shoulder.

“I am of a kind to Mithrandir, though less in power and bound in form.”

“You’re a wizard?”

She tossed her head back and laughs. “Nay, I am no wizard. I am the River’s daughter!”

“Goldberry is an offspring of the thought of The One,” said Mithrandir. Charlotte hadn’t realized that he and Tom were listening in on her conversation with Goldberry.

“Age, I shall not, nor be bound by time,” said Tom. “And so I found such a wife to be mine.”

“An immortal wife because you’re immortal?” Charlotte asked.

Tom grinned. “We are kindred, you and I, from beyond this plane. I found my purpose here below and a forest mine to tame.”

Charlotte unconsciously touched her locket, flanked by the rings, hanging under her dress. “I guess I have to find my purpose here.”

Then Tom, with a keen look on his face, said, “Show me the precious Ring!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Poor Frodo, flirting away happily and then Charlotte breaks his heart by taking the Ring.  
> 2\. Frodo eventually turning the Ring over to Charlotte requires a lot of handwaving. I think it is possible that he might have given it to another (Frodo did offer it to Gandalf and he also seemed willing to turn it over to Elrond and whatever fate Elrond had for the Ring) but not probable. However, for this story I used a bit of artistic license so that Charlotte could get the Ring.  
> 3\. The idea that Frodo thought he was being clever and tried to use the Ring to escape forgetting that Charlotte can see him amused me to no end, however.  
> 4\. Also, kudos to Gandalf for walking into a messy situation and deciding to roll with it.  
> 5\. Can we take a moment to appreciate the fact that Sam was ready to wield a spade against Charlotte if it turned out that she had hurt Frodo?  
> 6\. I am sorry. I cannot for the life of me write in iambic tetrameter. I borrowed a lot of Tom Bombadil's poetry from the book. Wherever the meter falls to pieces you can rest assured that that is an Allison original line. Sadly, my ability to write in iambic tetrameter will not improve in the next chapter either. I will now hang my head in shame.  
> 7\. Yes, Gandalf speaks to Tom in metered prose (or at least, he would, if I could write decent meter).  
> 8\. Can you guys just imagine S's face when she first met Tom Bombadil, though? I'm pretty sure that "wtf" summarized her reaction--especially when I gleefully told her he was 100% canon.  
> 9\. Tom's house is much, much deeper into the forest than Charlotte and Gandalf have realistically walked...but we're just going to ignore that.  
> 10\. Did living tens of thousands of years make Tom strange? Yes. Yes it did.  
> 11\. I decided that Goldberry is a Maia. If Tom, like Charlotte, is a human trapped in Arda and unable to die, it makes sense that he would seek out an marry an immortal spouse. Both Tom and Goldberry are more forthcoming with Charlotte because they recognize that Charlotte is a person like Tom. Also, Goldberry is bound in form the same way Melian was--although Goldberry and Tom do not have any children.  
> 12\. Will Charlotte be as willing to hand the Ring over to Tom as Frodo was? Tune in next week to find out!  
> 13\. Thank you for the kind comments and kudos! <3


	12. Chapter 12

“I will not be showing the ring to any bloody one,” Charlotte cried, jumping back from Tom and clutching the rings and locket in her hand. “Just looking at it will make people go insane. No matter what happens I’m keeping the ring right here and I’m not taking it out.”

She glared at both Tom, Goldberry and Mithrandir as she took two (very large) steps back from them.

Tom slapped his knee and laughed. “I see you have found a keeper for your bauble dear. Do not fret, my little cousin, you have naught to fear.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” she said.

“A better guardian could not have been found,” said Mithrandir.

“You have some explaining to do,” Charlotte said, shaking a finger at the gray haired wizard. “You can’t just go around telling everyone we meet about our mission--quest--thing! You have to stop doing that. Leaving a trail of people behind us who know that I have the Ring and that it’s not still in the Sûzat is a terrible idea. Why the fuck did you tell Tom in the first place?”

Mithrandir smiled and leans back against the stone wall of Tom’s cottage. “I think you know, Charlotte.”

“Wait...unless being like me means Tom’s from the real world and he’s unaffected by the ring too?”

Mithrandir smiled.

“Quick and clever like a fox small and sleek,” said Tom with a laugh. “Do not fear, your mission, your secret shall I keep.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and harrumphed.

“Sit, Charlotte, join us once more. You are not in any danger and nor is the burden you bear,” said Goldberry, her voice soft and kind.

She was irritated with Mithrandir and she didn’t trust Tom, but Goldberry seemed safe enough. She edged back to the bench and sat down, hand still clutched around the rings and locket hanging around her neck. Goldberry refilled her cup with more mint tea. Charlotte took it with her free hand. It trembled. She brought it to her lips and took a sip. Despite having sat in the pot for some time, the tea was still hot. Magic, she thought.

“Perhaps you have questions for Tom,” said Mithrandir as he accepted a refill of his own cup of tea. He was supremely calm and unaffected by her outburst. 

He was trying to change the subject, she knew. She hoped that he wouldn’t bring up the Ring again. She’d rather talk about her predicament than the Ring. She tugged at a loose thread on her skirt as she thought. Truthfully she have hundreds of questions but she didn’t know where to start. At last she asked, “Where did you come from?”

“Ah,” said Tom. He took off his floppy hat and scratched his head. “That place I have not thought about for many year so long. It was not a merry place nor filled with any song. I lived upon the streets with no pillow for my head, I earned my keep by sweeping coal and made the dust my bed.”

“A coal sweep? Like they used to have in London in the nineteenth century?” 

“I was a lad so young and keen with no loving eyes upon me seen. I climbed the chimneys, cleared the dust and did the work that I must. It was the year of Jubilee, a diamond one it was to be. The streets were filled with cheering crowds, bunting hung upon the boughs. But little Tom, Tom Bombadilo, found no joy. There was no love nor home for that young boy.”

“The Diamond Jubilee?” She knew that Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee took place at the end of the nineteenth century, or maybe the beginning of the twentieth. She couldn’t remember. 

“That was what he called it,” said Goldberry, her voice was sad.

Tom wiped his eyes with a handkerchief. He continued, his voice thick, “And then one night, when gas lamps burned so bright, I found a place upon a step, and there I slept as dark night crept. A Mister Ketterley lured me in with food, gave me a ring with magic so imbued. I took the ring and touched one yellow and came out of a pond. I wandered for a while beneath the wooded boughs beyond. I fell at last into a pool and then upon me my doom was cruel. When I awoke I saw the stars. There was no sun nor moon…” his voice trailed off. He stood abruptly and walked off, towards the forest.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

Goldberry stood, flicking imaginary dirt from her dress. “For a long time he was a boy alone under the stars. The world was sleeping. The first born had not yet woken. All that was good and true slept beneath the stars.”

“The first born?” Charlotte asked.

“The elves,” supplied Mithrandir.

“Oh,” she said. She couldn’t imagine how incredibly lonely little Tom must have been. “So what did he do?”

“He wandered,” said Goldberry. Her face darkened. “And then he found some of his kin.”

“There were others? Others like us?” she asked. Charlotte couldn’t help feeling excited.

Goldberry covered her face with her hands. “Yes, once a long, long time ago. But He found them.”

“Who is He?”

“Melkor,” said Mithrandir, his voice deep and grave. “Called Morgoth by the elves. He set himself up in opposition to The One and his poison and taint sank deep into the earth.”

“He corrupted the others of your kin,” said Goldberry, her face still covered. “He turned them into abominations.”

A cloud covered the sun and the forest was cast into shadow.

“Abominations?” Charlotte asked tentatively, afraid of the answer.

“The elves call them yrch. In the speech of Westron they are called orcs.”

She felt sick to her stomach. “So the orcs are all people like me?”

Mithrandir shook his head. “Not any more. The first orcs, many thousands of years ago were formed by putting the souls, the spirits, of men and women from your world into the crude bodies shaped by Morgoth.”

“So the orcs now are descendants of the first ones?” she asked. Her hand holding her tea cup was trembling again. This change in topic did not go as she had hoped.

“Yes. Though over the intervening millennia, Morgoth, and later Sauron, bred both men of this world, elves and animals with the orcs. Now their spirits are as corrupted as their flesh.

Charlotte felt nauseated. 

“The elves do not know the true origins of the orcs,” said Mithrandir. He reached over and placed a comforting hand on her arm. “And I do not tell you this truth to burden you, but to warn you.”

“Warn me?”

“Should Sauron discover you, I have no doubt that he would attempt to replicate the actions of Morgoth long ago.”

“You mean take my soul out of my body and stick it in an orc?”

Mithrandir sighed and looked down. “Yes. That I fear greatly.”

“This is why Tom’s so upset talking about his past.”

“Yes,” said Goldberry. “Memories of friends taken in the dark and the cruel fates they faced plague him to this day.”

“Yeah, that would definitely cause some serious PTSD,” Charlotte said. “How did he, and all of the others--and me, too, come to think of it--end up here? How did Tom get a ring? Who was that Mr. Ketterley person?”

Goldberry turned away, hands covering her face. She was crying.

Mithrandir shook his head. “That question is beyond my knowledge. Tom has not spoken before of how he came to be in Arda. The name Ketterley is not significant in your world?”

“No,” said Charlotte. “I’ve never heard of anyone with that name before. From what Tom said I can guess that he was someone who lived about a hundred and twenty years ago but who he was and why he had magic rings? I don’t have a clue.”

“After I entrust you to our mutual friend, then I will go to the head of my order and seek his understanding. I hope that by the time I meet you in Imladris to have an answer to that question.”

“I don’t suppose Tom knows how to go home?” Charlotte asked Goldberry.

She pulled her hands away from her eyes. Her eyes were red rimmed and tears glisten on her cheeks. “No, he never found the way. His yellow ring was lost when he arrived and he never found it. The world has changed since then. Mountains have been raised up and thrown down. The seas have encroached and receded. The world was bent.”

“Right, okay. Good to know.” Charlotte sagged back against the rock wall of the cottage.

“I must go and find my husband,” said Goldberry. She bent over and kissed Charlotte’s head. “All will be well, Charlotte. You shall find your place in this world.” She flit across the lawn and disappeared into the forest.

———

It was twilight when Tom and Goldberry returned. He was jovial again and made no mention of his past nor the Ring. He entertained them at dinner with songs and stories. Late into the night shooed them off to bed, promising an early start in the morning.

Although she was exhausted, Charlotte slept fitfully. Her sleep was plagued with strange dreams of shadowy monsters wreathed in flames dueling within a golden light and when she started awake it was already morning.

Charlotte and Mithrandir ate breakfast alone. Outside she could hear Goldberry singing through the window. When they’d finished eating, Mithrandir joined her outside while Charlotte double checked her rucksack and camera bag and made sure that the Ring is still hanging beside the locket around her neck. She almost opened the locket, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it in the end. She didn’t want to face the pain of missing them.

In the yard there were three ponies waiting. Hers sniffed her sleeve and then nuzzled her chest. She pet his nose. Following Mithrandir’s lead, she secured her rucksack and camera bag to the pony’s saddle. She watched how Mithrandir and Tom mounted their ponies before hopping onto hers. It took a few attempts but soon she figured out how to nudge her pony into walking and how to draw back the reins to slow it to a stop.

Tom led them behind the house to a path that climbed higher up the hill. Goldberry waved merrily goodbye as they left. Charlotte turned and waved and she smiled brightly. 

At the crest of the hill Tom paused so that they could look around and get their bearings. The forest stretched to the west, dappled shades of green and dark trunks. Looking south she could see a muddy-gray river winding through low lying prairies. In the east there were treeless hills that seemed to fold one onto the other, like the wrinkles and lumps in a large green blanket. Standing here and there, like jagged teeth, were tall stones. It reminded her of a neolithic site on a nature program.

“The Barrow-downs,” said Mithrandir gravely. “The road lies in that direction. We shall skirt the edges of the downs and seek the road.”

“What are the Barrow-downs?”

“The burial place of kings long ago,” said Mithrandir and he would say no more. Considering his usual habit of launching into a history lesson his terse remark left her feeling spooked.

Tom bid them farewell and reminded them to turn the ponies free when they reached the road. 

Then they were left alone to continue on their journey.

The road descended down the other side of the hill into the forest and into a deep broad valley and then up another hill and down into another valley. They rode across the undulating ridges and hollows of many hills. It was pretty, in a wild and foreign way. The trees didn’t seem to hinder their passage in the light of day, but they didn’t seem to be welcoming it either. 

Mithrandir did not pause for lunch but instead pulled bread out of his pack while riding. She did the same. And she checked to make sure that the Ring was there. Mithrandir’s warning in Maura’s kitchen to be wary that the Ring would try to escape her was forefront in her mind.

The trees thinned and the riding became easy and, in comparison to the forest, pleasant. But Mithrandir did not stick to the easy path over the rising and falling hills but instead turned aside, making a wide berth around them. She could see the road--a dark shadowy line on the horizon. If they cut straight across the hills of the Barrow-downs she thought it might be only five or so miles away. Going around the downs will add considerable time to their trek.

“What’s wrong? Why can’t we ride straight for the road?”

“There are foul things within the Barrow-downs,” he said in reply. “I do not wish to disturb them.”

She shivered, even though it is not cold. After the revelations yesterday she had no desire to learn anymore deep dark secrets of Arda.

The afternoon light slanted golden as the day drew to a close. She was sore from riding. She had to use the bathroom. The faint line of the road still seemed miles away. Still Mithrandir pressed on.

“Mithrandir?” she called to him, her voice sounded unnaturally loud.

He turned, but did not stop his pony.

“Do you think we could stop for a little bit?”

“Stop?”

“Yeah, I’ve never ridden a horse, er, pony, before and I’m sore and I really have to…” she trailed off. Hr cheeks were hot and no doubt bright red. She gestured vaguely and hop that he picked up on her meaning.

He brought his pony to a stop. “Quickly then, I do not want to be on the downs when the sun sets.”

“Okay.” She slid off of her pony and staggered. She was stiff and sore from riding so long. Patting her pony on the neck she led it over to Mithrandir and handed him the reins. “I’ll be really quick, I promise.”

She looked around for a bit of privacy. The rolling hills were covered in grass but there were no trees or even bushes in sight. There were the tall stones she had seen that morning set up here and there like markers. Some of the stones were grouped together, they looked a little like miniature stonehenges. She decide to avoid those and instead walked down the hill to stand behind one of the lone standing stones.

She pulled down her stockings and lifted her skirts and squatted behind the stone, back pressed against it for support. She was so intent on not falling over or getting herself wet that she didn’t notice the fog rolling in until she hiked up her stockings and stood up again.

The fog was thick and she couldn’t even see the way she had come.

“Mithrandir? Mithrandir!? Are you there?” she called.

Charlotte heard his voice faintly, as if coming from a great distance. 

“That can’t be right, I didn’t go that far,” she muttered to herself.

Her skin prickled and she whirled around. 

There was something moving through the fog. Coming towards her.

She took a step back and jumped when she crashed against the standing stone. She pressed her back against it. The fog closed in all around her. It quenched the sun and gloom surrounded her. Her heart was pounding in her chest. She knew that if she was lost, she was supposed to stay where in one place but she knew that something was coming towards her. 

She inched around the stone so that she could at least put the stone between herself and the thing in the fog. She tried to shout for help again but her voice stuck in her throat. She inched to the right, fingers and palms scraping against the stone. Her fingers wrapped around the edge of the stone. All it would take was a pivot to her right and she wouldn’t be facing the shadow. The stone would be at her back and it would be behind the stone. In the mist she could see that the shadow was shaped like a man. Two legs, two arms, a head. She could make out the dark shape of a raised blade.

She swallowed another yell and pulled back as flat as she could against the stone. She could feel the engravings on its surface pressing against her back. 

Her eyes were glued to the figure. It was wreathed in shadows but as it advanced she could see its face. Its leathery skin was stretched so taunt across its bones that it looked more like a skeleton than a man. It grinned at her with rotten black teeth as it raised it sword.

It swung.

She ducked.

Its sword struck the stone. A spray of stone chips and dusted rained down on her head. The ring of steel hitting stone reverberated in her ears. It swept the sword down and Charlotte threw herself onto her stomach and rolled. She had no choice but to roll towards the creature. As she rolled back to her back she kicked at its legs with both of her feet. It staggered and stumbled, unable to balance itself and swing its sword again. The fog swallowed it and she couldn’t see it.

Charlotte crawled backwards as fast as she could. Her heart was pounding in her head and she couldn’t catch her breath. The thick fog encircled her. It felt like the whole of Arda had been consumed by fog and mist and shadowy twilight. She backed into another stone head first.

“Fuck,” she said. Her head smarted. She leveraged herself upright, keeping her back pressed to the stone. 

Footsteps approached from her right. 

Charlotte pivoted left, throwing herself around the stone. 

But it had been a feint.

The figure was waiting for her with a leering smile on its withered lips.

“Mithrandir!” she shrieked, throwing her arms up and turning her face away.

Then, through the mist blazed a light like the rising sun. It was Mithrandir, staff and sword raised. The light seemed to emanate from the wizard himself.

“Begone foul shade of earth and stone! Flee!” shouted Mithrandir. He planted his staff into the turf and the light was so brilliant that she had to cover her eyes. White, searing light burned even through her clenched eyelids.

“Charlotte?” asked Mithrandir, his voice calm.

She peeked from behind her arms. The mist was gone and the world was left in the dull twilight of a recently set sun. Above her twinkled the faint pinpricks of early evening stars. The entity, whatever it was, was gone. Mithrandir stood, leaning on his staff but his sword was still raised. It was polished to a mirror-like sheen. She’d never seen a sword quite like it before. She couldn’t help but wonder where he’d been keeping it this whole time.

“I’m okay...I think.” She stood up and patted herself to be sure. ”What was that thing?”

“A barrow-wight,” said Mithrandir darkly. He sheathed his sword and let his gray cloak fall back over it, concealing it completely. She couldn’t believe he’d had a sword the whole time. “They are the bones of dead kings and princes of old that have been revived by foul spirits.”

Charlotte shuddered. “That thing was foul alright.”

Mithrandir stooped and picked up a sword from the grass. He turned it over in his hands. It was the sword used by the barrow-wight. “A sword of a king of Cardolan,” he muttered to himself. Then he turned and held it out to her, hilt first. “This is one of the blades forged to withstand the forces of the Witch King of Angmar two thousand years ago. Blades of its like have not been made since. You may take it, if you wish.”

“Is it a good idea? Is it evil? Would it have any bad consequences?” Charlotte, although not the biggest fantasy fan, knew enough about the genre to not immediately trust a sword taken from a demon-ghost.

“The men of Cardolan were good and true. Their sires were once the kings of Arnor and Gondor. They came from Numenor over the sea where they had been loyal to The One in the face of great evil.”

“Are you sure? I’m just paranoid that something might come and, you know, what the sword back.”

Mithrandir’s face was soft and kind. “The spirit which animated the bones of the dead has been cast away. It will not return.”

“What the heck do I do with it?” she asked, still not moving to take the sword. “I don’t know how to use it...I don’t even have a way to carry it.”

Mithrandir bent over and lifted up a metal scabbard from the ground. “I believe this might fit on your belt,” he said. He straightened and held out the hilt of the sword to her again.

Reluctantly she took the sword.

The blade was long and leaf-shaped. In the dim twilight she could make out the forms of fiery serpents etched into the blade itself. They gleamed red and gold in the low light. The hilt was wrapped in leather and a stone that seems to contain a fire was set in the pommel.

“A fire-opal,” said Mithrandir when he saw her studying the stone. As she turned the sword in her hand, the flames in the stone seemed to jump and flicker.

“It’s light,” she said, surprised by how little it weighed. She expected it to be heavy and unwieldy, but it couldn’t weigh more than a kilogram.

“The men of Cardolan were taught smith-craft by both the elves and the dwarves,” responded Mithrandir by way of explanation. 

Charlotte gave the sword a few experimental swings. Then she took the scabbard and slid it onto her belt. Mithrandir helped her adjust it so that it hung by her left hip. Then she tentatively slipped the sword inside. It fit perfectly. She took a few practice steps. The sword hung at her hip but didn’t impede her movement.

“Come, let’s return to the horses,” said Mithrandir, “We shall have to ride swiftly if we mean to leave the Barrow Downs before we lose the last of the light.”

The top of Mithrandir’s staff glowed faintly and he led the way back to the ponies. Charlotte was surprised by how far away they were. She hadn’t realized that she had walked so far earlier. Perhaps it was a trick of the fog?

Mithrandir did indeed keep a swift pace once they mounted the ponies. Her pony is sure-footed and she was glad. She definitely couldn’t see well enough anymore to tell where they were going. It was about an hour of quick trotting before the ground sloped down to a hedge-lined road. Mithrandir led her through a gap in the hedge and dismounted. 

“Remove your bags,” he said. “Be quick about it.”

It was hard to untie her bags in the dark. Clouds had blown in after the sunset and they covered the moon and stars. She managed to get them undone and slung onto her back. Then Mithrandir, with a quiet word to them, sent the ponies back into the downs.

“Will they be okay?” she whispered. “What if a barrow-wight tries to eat them?”

“Barrow-wights have no interest in animals.”

Charlotte wanted to watch the ponies to make sure they made it safely across the downs but Mithrandir would not let her stop. “We must keep moving,” he said. 

“Can I use my torch?” she asked.

“No. Take my arm.”

The walked in the dark for sometime, arm in arm. Mithrandir smelled like tobacco smoke, wind and fire. 

Then Mithrandir drew to a sudden stop.

“What is—?” she started to ask but he held up a shadowed hand in the dark to hush her.

He titled his head, listening. And then, she heard it, too. A low whistle from the bushes to their left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Charlotte (well, S, actually) is remarkably paranoid about anyone seeing, touching or even knowing about the Ring. Every time I offered S an opportunity to talk about it with anyone she shot it down. Proof positive that even without magic, the Ring lends itself to paranoia and possessiveness.   
> 2\. Once again, I cannot for the life of me write in meter. Gah.  
> 3\. The prose version of Tom's story: He was an orphaned coal sweep in London when in 1897. He was sweeping the chimney's of a house belonging to a man (who fancied himself a magician) named Andrew Ketterley. Ketterley tricked young Tom into touching a set of Rings and Tom was taken to the wood between Worlds. He wandered around for a while, losing the Yellow Ring in the woods. He fell through a pool with the green ring and found himself in Arda long before even the waking of the elves. He was not the first person from our world to end up in Arda (as in Narnia, rings were not strictly needed to travel between worlds), however, he was one of the few (if not the only) to survive so long. Interestingly, three years after tricking Tom into touching the rings, Andrew Ketterley tricked his nephew and his friend into touching the rings. This story is recounted in the book "The Magician's Nephew" by C.S. Lewis.  
> 4\. I've solved the origins of the orcs! Haha. But seriously, for this fic, I think that this solution for the origin of the orcs works quite well.  
> 5\. I do not like writing action sequences, but I hope that the action was clear enough and exciting to read about.  
> 6\. Gandalf uses a "spell" to expel the barrow wight. Like his "spells" in the books, it's just a spoken command. It's the force of his innate power that's behind his command that gives his words power.  
> 7\. Thank you for reading! See you next week!


	13. Chapter 13

A smile broke across Mithrandir’s face. He turned to the bushes and crouched, leaning on his staff. Charlotte crouched beside him. In the dim light, she could make out Aragorn hidden among the branches and leaves.

“Well met, friends,” he whispered, clasping a fist to his chest. “I hope you are well?”

“We are indeed,” said Mithrandir. “Have you a place to make camp?”

“I do,” said Aragorn. “A half-mile from here there is a little ravine with steep and stony sides. Our fire will be well hidden there.”

“Excellent,” said Mithrandir.

No one spoke until they reached the ravine. Even Charlotte could see that it was the perfect spot for a hidden camp. The ravine clove between two hills and was hidden by leafy trees and thick undergrowth. If she hadn’t known it was there, she probably would have fallen headlong into it—even in daylight. 

Aragorn led them down a steep path into the ravine. A narrow creek splashed from rock to rock in the middle of the gorge. They followed the creek upstream and into a deep cleft. On one side the creek hugged the steep stone walls but the other side had a narrow stretch of flat ground—wide enough for three sleeping rolls and a fire. A beautiful, warm, and lovely fire.

The fire was in a pit so that the flames were nearly invisible until they were right on top of it. The ground and air all around it was warm and it cast enough of a glow that she could see that Aragorn had indeed kept his promise and taken a bath.

“Hungry?” asked Aragorn and Charlotte was certain that she never been more glad to see hot stew and stale bread before. 

He used a stick to lift the handle of the iron pot out of the pit where it had been sitting beside the fire. Mithrandir had brought tin bowls in the hamper and he gave her one as well as a wooden spoon. Aragorn didn’t have a ladle so they dipped their bowls into the iron pot. Messy, yes, but she was so grateful for a hot meal that she didn’t care.

Aragorn leaned back against the wall of the ravine and said, “In truth, I expected you much earlier. I heard the news that you left Sûzat four days ago.”

“We were delayed,” said Mithrandir simply.

“Does it have anything to do with that fine blade Charlotte is carrying?”

“Yes,” she said. “I was ambushed by a barrow wight-demon-thing while I was, uh, relieving myself. I was surrounded by fog and I tried to get away, but it was too fast. If it hadn’t been for Mithrandir, I would be dead.”

“The graves of the long-dead kings of Cardolan have been infested with foul spirits from Angband,” said Aragorn gravely. “It has been so since Angband defeated the men of Arnor over a thousand years ago.”

“Arnor?” Charlotte frowned. “Is that the same as that holly-place Mithrandir told me about?”

Aragorn shook his head. “No, Eregion was an elven kingdom of the Second Age. Cardolan, Arthedain and Rhudaur were the nations that arose when the kingdom of Arnor splintered in the Third Age.”

“And Arnor itself was the northern half of the kingdom of Gondor,” supplied Mithrandir.

“Gondor?” Charlotte said, latching on to the one familiar name. 

“Yes, the very same Gondor that still exists southeast of Hithaeglir mountains to this day,” said Aragorn.

“So, uh, how long has this age been going on anyway?” 

“3,020 years,” says Aragon.

“Whoa,” Charlotte said. She tried to think of something on earth that was three thousand years old. She vaguely remembered that 1000 BCE was the Bronze Age. It was hard to imagine a continuous history of an area stretching back that far—let alone people being able to rattle off the names of old kingdoms like that.

“The Second Age,” said Mithrandir, between puffs on his pipe, “Lasted 3,441 years.”

“I think you just broke my brain,” she said. She knew for a fact that the farthest back in time written history went on Earth was only 6,000 years back. That meant that the known history of Arda was at least as old as Earth’s.

She froze. “Wait, did you say Second Age? You mean there was a First Age? Just how old is this place anyway?”

“Don’t forget the years of the trees,” piped up Aragorn with a cheeky smirk.

“Hmmm,” Mithrandir scratched with his finger in the dirt by the fire, clearly working out some math. “54,953 years--measured by our current yearly solar cycle of course.”

“Yep, my brain is broken. I’m going to bed now,” Charlotte said.

———

The next morning Mithrandir departed at dawn. He gave her a fond hug and kissed on the top of her head. It’s so grandfatherly and kind, especially since she hadn’t apologized yet for offended him over his religion, that she had to blink back tears. “All will be well,” he promised before he left, striding out of the ravine and into the early morning mist.

Aragorn was eager to be on his way, too, so after a quick cold breakfast, she helped him break camp.

“Imladris lies east of us, hidden in a deep valley in the Hithaeglir mountains,” Aragorn explained as they hiked out of the ravine. “It is about a hundred leagues from Bree.”

“What’s that in kilometers?” she asked.

“I do not know that word,” he said with a frown.

“Miles?”

“Three hundred.”

She scrunched up her nose, doing a mental conversion. 482 kilometers. She decided to stop asking questions for a while. All of the answers were uncomfortably large numbers.

Their course took them through a wooded valley, but this wood was pleasant and shady and not at all ominous and malicious like the woods around Tom Bombadil’s house. Aragorn took a straight path across the countryside, avoiding meandering paths. 

“No one knows that we are traveling,” he said. “If we were in danger of being followed I would not dare take such a direct route.”

She touched the Ring where it hung beside the locket under her dress. It was easy to forget that she carried it at all.

The rest of that day and the next were pleasant and Charlotte and Aragorn got to know each other well. He taught her swordsmanship and reviewed her Westron with her. In return, she told him the plots of her favorite movies and television shows. He was fascinated with the stories from her world. That night, beside the campfire, he turned the story of Star Wars into a ballad. It was particularly impressive.

It was morning on their third day together when the ground sloped down to a wide, broad swamp. She recognized it at once. It was the swamp she had seen that very first day when arrived in the rain on the hill.

“What is this place?” she asked.

“Midgewater Marshes,” said Aragorn, making a face. “The biting flies and midges will not be out this early in the spring, but the gnats will be fierce. Cover your mouth and nose as best you can. Keep a scarf over your ears and face. We will be swift, with speed and luck we can make it across before sunset.”

Aragorn significantly undersold how miserable the swamp was. The gnats swarmed her face, crawling over her skin, seeking her ears, her eyes, her nostrils and, her mouth. No matter how tightly she tied her scarf around her nose and mouth, they still found a way in. The ground was shifting and untrustworthy. Any step might mean a foot plunging off of solid land, thigh-deep into fetid, muddy water. All around her, she could hear the sounds of crickets, frogs, and splashes of dank water.

Once Aragorn paused to point to a line of hills in the distance to the south. “Those are the Hills of Wind,” he said. 

“That’s where I showed up when I got here,” she said, swatting at the cloud of gnats attacking her face.

“I am glad that you went south and did not venture into the Marsh alone,” said Aragorn.

After that, they did not talk until dusk. The ground grew firm under their feet and the two of them gathered dead wood from beneath a clump of scraggly bushes and stunted trees.

Once beside the fire (scratching at her bug-bitten face and neck), she stretched. She knew that they had covered less ground crossing the swamp than they had the previous two days, but she was exhausted. It had been a much more difficult day, slogging through the swamp. She was muddy and damp. She edged closer to the fire.

“We have a choice before us,” said Aragorn. “We can go turn south, cross the road and trek through the South Downs and approach Imladris from the south. Or we can stay north of the road and cut through the Trollshaws. Which way do you wish to go?”

Charlotte was surprised that he was leaving it up to her and she told him so.

“You carry the burden. Your input is important.”

“What are the routes like?”

Aragorn rubbed his chin. He had shaved before he met them by the Barrow Downs, but his beard was already growing back, dark and thick. “The South Downs are the easier country to traverse by far. Grasslands and hills, few people live there now. Mostly nomads. In the summer shepherds from Dunland might come up this way but there have been fewer in recent years. We would head southeast, to the Swanfleet--swamps where the Greyflood and Glanduin rivers meet,” he added the last bit at her confused look.

“More swamps?” She shuddered, involuntarily scratching the insect bites on her arms.

He cracked a smile. “They’re not as vast nor as, uh, insect-infested, as the Midgewater Marshes. There used to be a great city of men there.” His smile turned wistful for a moment before he shook it off and continued. “Once we reach the Swanfleet we would head north, through Hollin, along the western foothills of the Misty Mountains towards Imladris.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad. Not many people, easy travel through grass. What’s the catch?”

Aragorn sobered. “Orcs.”

“Yikes.” She had zero desire to run into orcs--especially now that she knew that they originated from corrupted and perverted human souls bred with animals. “Okay, what about the other route?”

“We would continue due east. This land was once called Rhudaur and fell to the forces of Angmar many centuries ago. The ruins of their castles and fortresses can still be found on the highest hills. It is covered in a thick forest which would provide cover from enemy on the wing. Few live in the Trollshaws, mostly Rangers, like myself. The Ford of Bruinen lies due west of Imladris and once we cross its banks we will be under the shelter and protection of the Lord of Imladris.”

“Okay, that way sounds great,” she said. “What’s the catch with this route?”

“Trolls.”

“Yikes.”

A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Both ways have benefits and dangers all their own.”

“What do you think we should do?” 

“The route through the Trollshaws is the most direct and many of my people live in villages and settlements 30 leagues south of the Trollshaws. We might come across some of my kinsmen patrolling the Trollshaws. Of course, spring is mating season for trolls”

“They -mate-?!”

His face was grim. “Where do you imagine new trolls come from?”

She hadn’t even considered imagining it before. If she had been asked, she would have assumed they sprung up from rocks. At least that made sense, considering the story Maura had told her one night. According to Maura, his uncle Bilba and his dwarf friends had been captured by a group of stupid trolls that squabbled with each other. They were saved when the sun rose and they all turned to stone. That would imply, at least, that trolls would only be a danger at night.

“What about the South?”

“That route is less known by me. I have not taken it in many years. I do not know how many Dunlendings roam those hills nor how many orcs have come down from the mountains this spring. It is much longer and we will draw near to the Gap of Rohan and I have heard troubling rumors of the horse lords. And the Dunlendings have been hostile toward my people for generations. We could face danger from both orcs and men.”

Aragorn sighed and poked his stick in the fire.

“So…?” she said, hoping he’d just tell her which way to go. 

“So,” he said, “Each way is equal in danger though the journeys will be very different. To go south would mean many days of walking and foraging off of the land with the chance of encountering hostile men or orcs. To go north would mean a shorter journey and the chance of coming upon male trolls displaying their dominance to impress females. Which route and which danger we face is up to you.”

Charlotte scowled. She sometimes struggled to decide what to eat for dinner. She tried to remember what happened in the movie. She knew the black horsemen chased them. She had a vague memory of a sweeping shot of Frodo riding with an elf lady on a horse across a windswept grassland. She supposed that meant that the terrifying Dementor riders were in the grassland waiting. So going south was out of the question.

“We’ll go east. Through the Trollshaws. You’re more familiar with that route. And it sounds faster.”

“It is a shorter distance, to be sure,” he said. “We must be wary and on our guard. A pregnant sow-troll is more dangerous than a dozen bears robbed of their cubs.”

She grimaced. “But they turn to stone during the day, right?”

“That is true, but we will have to be very cautious. No fires at night and if we can sleep hidden in the bracken of the forest floor or perched in a tree, all the better.”

“Sleep in a tree?” That did not sound very safe.

Aragorn winked “Perhaps no trees. But in the bushes and out of sight will be the safest.”

“As long as there are fewer bugs than there were today,” she said, itching her hands, “I’m fine with it.”

———

When Aragorn woke her the next morning the only hint of the approaching dawn was the sliver of light shining behind the mountains to the east. The land was grassy with clumps of straggly stunted trees dotted here and there. Although Aragorn spoke of a forest to the east she could see no sign of it. Just grass and bent and withered trees. At least the grass was new and fresh. Green and verdant. There were even little white flowers and looked like tiny daisies growing between the blades. The weather was fine for walking and they continued to exchange stories (and in his case, ballads and songs).

Lunch was a picnic beside a narrow stream cut deep into the grassland. While they ate, she looked back at the hills. The hills that woke up on a few months before. 

“They don’t look any smaller,” she said.

Aragorn, who had climbed down beside the stream and was couched to fill up their water skins, looked up at her and then to the hills behind her. “They are giants in the landscape. They will dominate the horizon for many leagues to come, but as we travel further east they will diminish and the mountains before us will grow.”

At night they did not make a fire. It would be seen for miles in all directions, Aragorn explained. At least the night sky, covered in thousands and thousands of dazzling stars made up for the lack of a hot meal. 

“Aragorn?” Charlotte said softly. 

They were taking turns sleeping in shifts. Aragorn had the first shift awake but Charlotte couldn’t sleep.

“Yes?”

“Who made the stars?”

“Elbereth did.”

“That’s what Mithrandir said. Do you really believe that?”

“Of course,” he said. He sat beside her, eyes scanning the horizon, his fingers busy mending the cuff of his sleeve with needle and thread.

“We don’t have Elbereth in my world.”

“No?”

Charlotte shook her head. She rolled over and propped herself up on her elbow. The starlight in the cloudless sky above was so bright she could see him with ease. “In my world the stars just are. No one made them. Or rather, they made themselves.”

“They made themselves?”

“There was a Big Bang and then…” Charlotte trailed off. Truth be told, astronomy and science had never been her strength. “Well, okay, there was nothing and then there was a big explosion and that filled up space with gas and things and then gravity pulled it together and they turned into stars.”

“Gravity? Who is Gravity?”

She groaned. “Gravity isn’t a person. Not like Elbereth. It’s a force. It’s what keeps everyone from floating away into space.” One year for Christmas she had considered buying Thomas a picture book about outer space. She regretted not getting it for him. She knew she was making a mess of explaining things to Aragorn. 

“Who made this force of gravity?” Aragorn asked. He knotted the thread and lifted his cuff to his mouth to bite it off.

“No one made it. It just is. It’s a law of physics.”

“The One just Is,” he said.

Charlotte flopped back. They were clearly having two parallel conversations. “Never mind.”

“Perhaps the Valar are not known in your world. Or perhaps they have different names.”

“That’s what Maura said. But I don’t think so. Nobody can be really sure that God exists, can they?”

“You cannot see the wind but you can feel its presence.”

“I’m going to sleep now. I’m tired,” Charlotte said. She rolled over so that she wasn’t facing him anymore. She pulled the necklace out from her dress and pushed the ring farther up the chain so she could cradle just the locket in the palm of her hand. Despite telling Aragorn that she was tired, she lay awake for a long time under the starlight.

———

They ate a cold breakfast on the go but at lunchtime Aragorn stopped by a creek with enough wiry and bent trees to collect wood for a small fire. A hot lunch while dipping her sore feet into the cold water left her refreshed. For the first time since the night before she felt her spirits lift. With no plans for a nighttime fire again, they walked until dusk and camped on top of a hill, splitting shifts to keep watch.

Things continued this way for the next four days. A cold breakfast while walking, a hot lunch (if they could find enough fuel for a fire), and more walking until dusk. She knew that Aragorn was taking longer watches during the night so that she could sleep longer. She offered to take a long watch on the fourth night but he waved her off. He said that he can survive on less sleep than she could.

She ran out of interesting stories to tell him so he told her about his childhood. He grew up in Imladris, she learned, the Lord of the hidden elf settlement, Elrond, had become his foster father.

“My father died when I was young,” he said, taking a large step over a rut in the grassland. He turned and held out a hand to help her across. “My mother brought me to Imladris and asked for Elrond to care for me. He has cared for my kin for many generations.”

“Why?” 

“My forefather was his brother.”

“You’re an elf?” she said in surprise, perking up. Aragorn didn’t look anything like how she expected an elf to look.

He laughed. “No, I am no elf. Though my foster-brothers would be delighted that you thought so. No, Elrond and his brother Elros are peredhel, half-elven.”

“One human parent and one elf parent?” She remembered the romantic poem she had read at Maura’s house. The star-crossed lovers who had defied the devil and death itself for their happily ever after. “Are Beren and Luthien their parents?”

“You know that tale?” asked Aragorn in surprise.

“Maura had a book with a poem about it. It was the only book in English, I mean, Sindarin, so I read it. It was a really good story. Mithrandir hinted that it might be true.”

“It was,” said Aragorn. “But no, Beren and Luthien are not Elrond and Elros’ parents. They were their great-grandparents.”

“Why do I get the feeling that there is a very complicated family tree at play here?”

Aragorn chuckled. “That’s because there is.”

She held up her hands. “I don’t want to hear it. Unless you’re going to give me a flowchart or a cheat sheet, I do not want to hear it.”

“Noted,” said Aragorn, still chuckling.

The two of them walked in silence for a long stretch. She was contemplating humans and elves and complicated family trees. Finally, she asked, “What happened to Elrond’s brother? Does he live at Imladris too?”

“He died.”

“Elves can die?”

“He chose to be counted as a man.”

“What does that mean?”

“Elves are tied to this earth. Their souls will live as long as this earth exists.” Aragorn plucked out a long blade of grass and rolls it between his fingers as he walks. “Men, however, have been given the gift of death.”

“Death isn’t a gift.”

“Is it not?” he asked.

She ignored his glance and stared ahead at the mountains which had been growing in the distance as they drew closer. She thought about Tom Bombadil and how he had lived and lived and lived without dying. How he said he was tied to Earth and he can’t age or grow old in this world. She thought about what it will be like to live as long as he had. How lonely he would be if it were not for Goldberry. As near as she could figure from her and Mithrandir’s vague explanations, Goldberry was an angel of some sort. In the face of living forever without end, perhaps death could be considered a gift. In an extremely morbid and dark sort of way.

“So Elros chose to die but Elrond didn’t?” she asked at last.

“Elrond chose to be counted among the elves,” Aragorn confirmed.

“That’s kind of depressing,” she said. “To be separated from your family like that.”

Sudden sadness washed over Aragorn’s face and he didn’t answer. 

The next day she was bored enough that she actually asked Aragorn to explain the complicated family tree. He did his best but the names all sounded so foreign and they ran together. And there was an awful lot of drama surrounding stolen necklaces and dwarves and at one point a lady turned into a swan. The one thing that stuck out to her was the number of times elves and men got married and had children.

“Does it happen a lot?” she asked.

“Does what happen a lot?”

“The whole marrying elves thing.”

“It has not happened for thousands of years,” he said. “And the line of Beren and Luthien is something of an exception rather than the rule.”

“Meaning?”

“There are lesser-known tales of elves and men marrying but the most prominent, the most important, happened in the First Age with the children and grandchildren of Beren and Luthien.”

“Why doesn’t it happen more often? I mean, elves and men are clearly, uh, biologically compatible.”

She swore that Aragorn blushed from head to foot.

He stuttered and stammered and finally managed to say, “Elves only marry once in their lifetimes.”

“Ohhhh,” she said, quickly catching the implication. Why would an elf, who was immortal, want their only marriage to be spent with someone who would only live a few more decades and then die?

She had sort of been hoping that maybe she would meet a nice elf guy to live with forever. If she was going to be stuck here, maybe an elf would be her answer to not being alone. She was pretty sure that beings like Goldberry and Mithrandir were rare and she was not going to marry Mithrandir. Nope. No. Never. But from the way Aragorn spoke, it sounded like humans and elves just didn’t get married anymore. Add to the fact that all of these marriages took place (she did some mental math) over six thousand years ago, and she knew that a romance with an elf just wasn’t on the table for her.

She sighed.

Alone forever it was.

Sensing her gloomy mood, Aragorn decided to sing his Star Wars ballad again, this time adding a new verse altering the storyline of the sequel movies. It was quite good even considering she had to make some major on-the-fly edits when she told him the original story to leave out the space ships which left some serious plot holes for him to contend with. She had to snicker to herself as he passionately sang what amounted to a fanfiction to lift her spirits as they continued walking.

On the fifth day, the ground began to rise and on the sixth, they reached the crest of the first foothill of the not-so-distant mountains. She could see the glimmer of a gray river to her right with rolling forested hills stretched out before her. Far away, at the edge of her sight was a second river, little more than a gleam in a stony valley.

Aragorn informed her that the far river was about a hundred miles away. She could hardly believe that she could see that far into the distance.

“We will go back to the road here for a while,” said Aragorn. “We have come to the River Mitheithel. It flows down from the Ettenmoors, the troll-fells north of Imladris, and joins the Loudwater away in the South. Some call it the Grayflood after that. It is a great water before it finds the Sea. There is no way over it below its sources in the Ettenmoors, except by the Last Bridge, which the road crosses.” He pointed out the road, curving around the feet of the hills.

“Okay, let’s get moving.” Charlotte had lost track of how many days had passed since she left Maura’s home in the Shire. Her dress was filthy and her feet were beyond blistered and sore. And she knew that she still had days of travel and at least a hundred miles of walking ahead of her. She was not cut out for quests. 

She patted theRing under her dress as she followed Aragorn down the hill towards the road. It was so easy to forget that it was there. She felt guilty. Sometimes she forgot to check for it for the whole day. It really was just a piece of jewelry to her.

“The first bridge is a few miles ahead of us,” said Aragorn as they reached the road. “I should like to cross it before nightfall and make camp on the far bank of the River Mitheithel.”

The road was thick with grass but they made swift progress

“Few travel this way in these times,” was all Aragorn would say by way of explanation. 

After a few miles, the sound of the river grew louder and the road sloped down steeply. They round a corner and saw the bridge. It was built of stone with a high arch. It was narrow, perhaps wide enough for a single cart to cross. The bridge was littered with leaves and on both sides, thickets and bushes had grown close to the road and the banks of the river. They crossed without pausing to fill up their water skins or even to rest.

“I do not wish to travel on the road any longer than we must when we travel with such a burden,” he said in a low voice, his strides were long and quick. She trotted behind him to keep up, pressing the ring against her chest through her dress.

It was not long after they crossed the bridge, with the late afternoon light waning, that he turned off of the road and led her into a narrow ravine. Here the land was steep and hilly, full of huge tumbled boulders and great rocks jutting up from the ground. On a hilltop to her left, she saw the fallen remains of a stone tower. 

“Men dwelt here, ages ago,” said Aragorn when she asked him about the tower, “but none remain now. They became an evil people, as legends tell, for they fell under the shadow of Angmar.”

She put her hand on the hilt of her sword. Mithrandir said that it had been forged to fight the forces of Angmar. She wondered where Angmar was and how it could have been a threat to different kingdoms who were so far apart.

“All were destroyed in the war that brought the North Kingdom to its end,” Aragorn continued. “But that is now so long ago that the hills have forgotten them, though a shadow still lies on the land.”

He didn’t follow any paths as he led her deeper into the forest. They climbed over rocks and fallen trees and in and out of steep gorges and ravines. She was hopelessly lost but he, at least, seemed to know his way. Beneath the canopy of the trees night fell quickly. 

Aragorn did not make a fire but instead built a lean-to out of fallen trees and branches and they huddled together for warmth. This must be, she realized, troll country at last.

She did not sleep much at all.

The next morning there was more of the same: rocks, fallen trees, scrambling up and down steep hillsides. She found herself often grabbing saplings to brace against as she climbed. Aragorn paused now and then to get his bearings. 

“I am glad of the good weather,” he said, “For otherwise I would become lost in this land.”

“I thought you knew where you were going!” she said.

“By the road, yes, but it has been many years since I made this journey without following the road.”

“Okay,” she said, coming to a dead stop and crossing her arms over her chest. “Listen, I only picked this way because I thought you knew where you were going!”

“I do!” he said defensively. “Mostly.”

“Oh my goodness,” Charlotte said, exasperated.

And then she took a misstep off of a rock and promptly fell down the hill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The little ravine where they camped is based on the ravines that can be found throughout the hilly countryside where I live. You often find them cut in between the folds of the hills. If you come across one from the top of a hill the sides are very steep (if not sheer), however, you can walk into them from the narrow ends at the head and foot of the ravine. A ravine like that seemed like an ideal place to camp out of sight.  
> 2\. The scale of history in Middle Earth is just staggering. To really make your brain hurt, adjust the dates to match ours but keep the time scale the same. Arnor divided into three kingdoms 2,157 years before Fellowship of the Ring--or, if adjusted to our timeline, in 136 BCE. That's the time when the Roman Republic was around. Arnor was abandoned in what would be the equivalent of 977 AD which is the same century that the Vikings were settling in France. Going back even further, the beginning of the Second Age is older than our oldest recorded history. Charlotte is right to boggle at the scale of time in Arda.  
> 3\. I was playing this story game with both my brother and with S. Up until this point their choices had roughly aligned but when Aragorn asked which way they should travel to Imladris, my brother chose to go south. My brother's character and Aragorn ended up near an encampment of nomadic Dunlendings. His character spotted a child drowning in a river and saved the child. In the process, the Ring escaped him. Unfortunately for the story (but fortunately for my brother) he was able to return to work in the healthcare field full time (he had been furloughed at the beginning of the pandemic) and so we never did discover if he ever found the Ring again.  
> 4\. Charlotte forgetting that she had the Ring is a joke that I (as the author) actually kept forgetting about it. S, however, NEVER forgot about it and frequently chided me for not mentioning where the Ring was. She became especially paranoid about it when she heard what happened to my brother's character. To be fair, the Ring does not like being carried by someone it can't sway and will attempt to get away.  
> 5\. Charlotte and Aargorn make better time across Midgewater Marshes than he does in the books because it's just two of them, no pony and Charlotte can take longer strides.  
> 6\. Do I frequently take advantage of all of the things S misremembers from the movies? Why yes, yes I do.  
> 7\. Charlotte is continuing to wrestle with the reality of the Valar after coming from our world.  
> 8\. So Tolkien records the marriages of Beren and Luthien, Tuor and Idril and Arwen and Aragorn as the three big elf/human marriages (with Andreth and Aegnor being the couple that should have been, dang it!). But he also hints that the Princes of Dol Amroth had an elf ancestress. In my head canon there were more human/elf marriages than were passed down in legend. It was still rare but it happened now and then. What can I say? I'm a romantic.  
> 9\. I also cannot believe that Tolkien mentioned in the book that Aragorn and the hobbits could spot a river a hundred miles away. Curvature of the earth, Professor! It's a thing!  
> 10\. Thank you for reading! See you next week!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I thought Glorfindel was introduced in chapter 14...turns out that I counted my chapters wrong and it's actually chapter 15. I want to still introduce him this week, so we're squeezing in a bonus chapter tonight so that I can upload chapter 15 later this week. My counting mistake means you guys get two chapters this week!)

Charlotte tumbled down the hill, flailing, trying to grab anything to slow her descent. Her sword hit her in the face on the way down. Her legs tore through tree roots. Her arms dislodged rocks. Her rucksack nagged on a tree branch and brought her to a stop. She landed in a heap, legs twisted beneath her, arms flung wide, clutching dead leaves and sticks. Her chest heaved and she stared up at the blue sky through the tree branches above her head. For half a second she thought she was fine. That she’d somehow made it unscathed. And then she felt pain and wet blood.

There was blood gushing down her face, running down her neck. Her left cheek burned from where the sharp blade had sliced it. She pressed her hand to the cut and warm blood spilled between her fingers. She attempted to haul herself to her feet and it was then that she realized that something else was wrong. A shock of pain radiated up from her right ankle so suddenly and so sharply that her vision went blurry and she fell to the ground.

Aragorn half ran, half slid down the hill to her side. “Your face!” he cried, skidding to a halt at her side. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and pressed it to her cheek. 

Charlotte felt woozy—from the blood loss or her ankle, she couldn’t tell. She started crying.

He pulled his handkerchief back and examined the cut. “It is not too deep but I will have to stitch it closed.”

“Oh, God, no,” Charlotte sobbed. She’d only had stitches once before (an unfortunate night out while in uni which required seven stitches on the bottom of her foot). Getting stitches in the middle of the woods was a recipe for infection.

“Hold the cloth to your face. I need to get my pack.” Aragorn lifted her hand to the handkerchief and when he felt that she was pressing it with sufficient strength, he bolted to his feet and half-ran, half-climbed up the hill to his bag.

She lay, slumped on the hillside, pressing the cloth to her face. Tears rolled down her face but, to be honest, her face was so wet with blood that she hardly noticed her tears. She wanted to go home. She wanted her mum.

Aragorn climbed down the hill with his pack in hand. He knelt beside her and unhooked her water bottle from her rucksack. “This is metal, your water may be cleaner than mine.” He took his needle and thread out of his pack.

Charlotte screwed her eyes shut. When she had watched him mending his shirt a few nights before it would never have occurred to her that he would soon be doing the same with her face. “I’m going to die,” she whispered hoarsely.

“You will live, I promise,” he said, pouring water over her cheek. “Here, put this between your teeth.” 

She felt something press against her lips. She opened her eyes. A stick.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” she said. 

“I will be quick,” he said. “But I must close the wound. It will continue to bleed if I do not.”

Charlotte opened her mouth and bit down on the stick.

“I am sorry,” he said. He moved to straddle her, pinning her arms to her side. His eyes were worried and that was terrifying.

Then he began.

Charlotte had had kidney stones at age 27. She had always thought that they were the worst possible pain she had ever experienced.

She was wrong.

She screamed and bucked but Aragorn kept her pinned. She thrashed her head from side to side but he grabbed her forehead with his left hand and held it in place while he stitched with his right. As soon as he cut the thread and moved off of her, she lurched to the side and vomited. She didn’t even have time to spit the stick out before she was sick. The stick went flying with the force of her projectile vomit. And the pain of vomiting with her injured face was so great that her vision went white.

She didn’t wake up so much as become aware that Aragorn was washing her face with more water. She squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she could. She wanted to die.

“Can you stand?” he asked. “We must find shelter.”

“I think I broke my leg too,” she managed to say.

She felt him prod her leg. It wasn’t until he reached her ankle that she howled with pain.

“I do not think it is broken,” he said. “At least, the bone has not punctured the skin.”

“It feels broken,” she said with a sob.

“Can you rotate your foot?”

“No,” she told him without even trying. She already knew it was going to hurt too much. Everything hurt too much. She felt like she was going to be sick again. She was covered in a cold sweat.

“Can you try?”

She tipped her foot the slightest bit to the left and yelped in pain. Fresh, hot tears ran down her cheeks. The salt of her tears burned like fire as they rolled across her stitches.

Aragon took her rucksack and camera bag from her, and shouldering both her bags along with his, he stood and lifted her into his arms.

Progress was slow. Aragorn had to stop often to catch his breath or adjust his hold on her. Her face, her ankle, her foot, her entire body, seemed to throb in pain in time with her heartbeat. Charlotte felt as if she had tunnel-vision: all she could concentrate on was the pain.

At last he set her down on a stony shelf in a ravine. The rocky wall above them leaned out over the shelf providing a little shelter. He untied his bedroll from his rucksack and tucked it, still rolled, under her ankle. He dabbed her cheek with his wet handkerchief, frowning. He didn’t speak as he unpacked and made camp for the night. It was clear that he knew that speaking would only make things worse.

Once her ankle was elevated, he draped her sleeping roll and coat over her body and unscrewed the top of her water bottle and passed it to her. He disappeared into the woods and she leaned her head back against the rock and indulged herself in another good cry. She would have thought that as time passed, everything would hurt less, but it didn’t. In fact, she felt as if she hurt even more. The pain was overwhelming.

When he returned he was carrying an armload of dry branches for a fire.

“What about the trolls?” she whispered. Her lips tasted like her blood.

“It is still light,” he said, dropping the sticks onto the rocky shelf beside her. “I have some willow bark in my pack and I found some yarrow.”

She was confused and he clarified, “When steeped in a tea willow bark is a painkiller. It is not as effective as the medicine worked by Lord Elrond, but I hope that it will help enough tonight. Yarrow will help with the bleeding and prevent infection.”

He made quick work of lighting a fire. From his pack he removed his little cooking pot and filled it with water from his water skin and sprinkled in what looked like wood chips from a leather pouch. She closed her eyes. Her ankle was pounding in pain to the rhythm of “hate this, hate this, hate this, go home, go home, go home.”

“Here,” said Aragorn after several minutes. He was holding a wooden cup filled with a steaming liquid. She took it and inspected it. The hot water was a rusty-reddish color and it had a scent she couldn’t quite place. The steam was hot on her face. She took a tentative sip. She half expected that it would be bitter, like aspirin, and it was. It tasted medicinal, there was no mistaking that flavor, but also a bit woody. Her mouth and tongue tingled and felt a little numb as she drank it. 

“Eat this,” said Aragorn, handing her some of the flat stale bread they’d been eating the last few days after they ran out of sausages, apples and carrots. “The tea can upset an empty stomach.”

She nibbled on the bread but she could barely open her mouth without searing pain. She managed to only gnaw off the equivalent of a few bites.

He took a handful of little white flowers and thin fern-like leaves and filled his other wooden cup with them. He had a pestle in his pack and he used it to grind the leaves and flowers into a paste. He shuffled next to her and, after washing his hands with water from his water skin, smeared the paste on her cheek. Just his touch, gentle as it was, was so painful she could hardly hold back a shriek. Once he had finished, he wiped his hands on his trousers. He smothered the fire with dirt.

“Eat, Charlotte. You need to eat. The tea will make you ill if you do not eat something.”

He turned out to be right. The tea did upset her stomach. She felt downright nauseated but at least the pain receded. Marginally.

The night was long and she got no sleep. She tried to eat more of the bread but she could barely stomach more than a bite or two. Her face was stiff with pain and her stomach was churning and nauseated. Several hours into the night Aragorn offered her more tea (she hadn’t noticed that he’d brewed more than a single cup in his little pot). Although her stomach was a mess she took the offered cup because she hurt so badly. Before the tea could reduce the pain she gagged. Her mouth filled with saliva and she barely had time to drag herself away from Aragorn before she vomited everywhere.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she mumbled, crying again. He offered her water and helped her back to her place under the rock outcrop. He covered her with her bedroll and coat and then used a stick to bury her vomit. She turned away, embarrassed, and pretended to sleep so she didn’t have to look at Aragorn. She was a thirty four year old adult. She was ashamed that she’d been so clumsy and was crying and throwing up like a helpless child.

The rest of the night crawled by. Aragorn slept curled up under his cloak beside her. She couldn’t sleep. Hopelessness swallowed her up. She just wanted to go home. She pulled the necklace out from her dress. For the first time since she arrived in Arda, she opened her locket. It was too dark to see Thomas and Amelia’s picture. Somehow that made it worse. She swallowed back another stream of hot tears. Her heart hurt more than her body.

In the morning, when the sun rose, Aragorn lit a fire again. She was worried that he was going to make more of the awful tea, but instead he emptied out his little pot and set freshwater on to boil. He promised to be back soon, and he headed out into the woods with his bow and quiver of arrows. When he returned he was carrying a skinned animal of some kind. It looked like a rat.

“It’s a squirrel,” he said when he saw her suspicious look. The squirrel went into the boiling water. From his pockets he produced mushrooms with wrinkled caps like little brains, thin, pale carrots and various leaves. These too went into the water.

She pulled the her coat up over her head and breathed through the pain.

Aragorn tapped her shoulder some time later and offered her a bowl of squirrel soup. She was glad it was mostly broth because she was certain that if there had been chunks of squirrel floating in her bowl she would have thrown up again. Not that she could have opened her mouth enough to eat anything more than small sips. Her left cheek blazed in stiff pain.

“We must find help,” said Aragorn. “I do not have the means to help you here, but in Imladris you will find healing and rest.”

“How do we get there?” she asked. It was the most she had managed to say since the afternoon before.

“The road is half a day’s journey to the south. Once on the road it should be but a day or two, possibly three, before we reach the Bruinen. Elves patrol the banks of the river regularly. With luck we might come across a patrol but if not, the ford of the river is not far from Imladris.”

“How many miles?” Short sentence were all that she could manage.

Aragorn muttered something that sounds suspiciously like seventy.

“I can’t do that,” Charlotte said. She closed her eyes and let her hand holding her spoon drop to her side.

“I could move swiftly on foot. If I run the distance I could cover it at speed.”

“Can you carry me and run?”

“I wouldn’t. You would remain behind and I would bring back help.”

“No, you can’t.” She knew she was whining but she was terrified of being left alone. She would die if Aragorn left her. She would be helpless in the wilderness even if she wasn’t injured. “Please, just take me home.”

He stroked her head, frowning. “I will not leave you.”

She didn’t realize that she had fallen asleep until he woke her later. He had found a long, study branch and fashioned it into a crutch. He wrapped his scarf around a crook at the top of the branch to make a padded support to go under her arm. He had also made more paste from yarrow. He smeared it on her face (she shuddered with pain as he did so) and then took her scarf and wrapped it around her face and neck, tying it securely. 

“This will have to do for now,” he said. ““Do not try to bear weight on your foot.”

With his help, Charlotte stood, she leaned heavily on the crutch, holding her injured foot off of the ground. He gave her his walking stick and she clutched it in her other hand. She was dizzy and the world swirled relentlessly around her. Aragorn rolled up her bedroll and stuffed her coat into her rucksack. He fastened her pack to his and slung them onto his back. Her camera bag he pulled over his shoulder.

“We will walk side by side whenever possible,” he said. “When we must climb I will follow behind you to catch you if you fall. When we descend, I will go before you so that you can brace yourself on me. When you cannot walk I will carry you as far as I am able.”

“Okay,” she said with a grim nod. “Thank you.”

The going was slow. Literally painfully slow. After some trial and error she learned that if she stepped forward with her left leg she could put all of her weight on the crutch and walking stick so that her injured right leg didn’t support any of her weight at all. Then, when she would have stepped forward onto her right leg, she used the crutch and walking stick instead. It was cumbersome and hard to get used to. Many times (too many) she got the rhythm wrong and send a spasm of jarring pain shooting up her ankle and leg by accidentally putting weight on the wrong foot. The steep and rocky terrain made all of this exponentially more difficult.

Aragorn was unbelievably patient with her. He was kind and encouraging and even when she practically collapsed to a stop at the top of a hill a hundred feet from where they started. He didn’t once suggest turning back and letting him go on ahead. He seemed to realize that how frightened she was of being left alone and he didn’t try to pressure her to consider staying behind.

By noon she was drenched in sweat and her arms were shaking with fatigue. They had reached the top of a tall hill and found the ruins of a tower. When he proposed that they stop for lunch she was more than grateful to collapse onto the remains of a stone wall and drop her crutch and walking stick. She knew that they had only been traveling for an hour or two and they couldn’t possibly have gone all that far. The thought of continuing on this way for another seventy more miles was so all encompassingly miserable that she couldn’t suppress her sob.

Aragorn pretended not to notice that she was having a breakdown on the wall. Instead he lit a fire, boiled some water and added wood chips.

More awful tea.

While the tea brews she ate as much of the bread as she could manage. Every time she opened her mouth it felt as if she was reopening the wound on her cheek. She felt blood oozing down her cheek. Other than the squirrel soup that morning, they had been living off of palm sized dense dry loaves of bread pricked all over with holes and square bars of what Aragorn told her was made of dried meat, lard and dried berries. She knew she won’t be able to eat a meat-bar but she did think she could eat some of the bread. By the time she had eaten most of her bread, Aragorn had the tea ready.

She drank it quickly and tense, waiting to vomit. Thankfully, having the bread in her stomach meant that she only felt vaguely queasy instead of downright ill. Aragorn smothered the fire and ate his own lunch. The he checked her cut, cleaning the dried blood from her face and replacing the yarrow paste.

“Are you ready?” he asked, as he tucked his water skin back into his rucksack.

“Yes,” she lied. She wasn’t ready, not at all, but the alternative was staying on that crumbling wall and starving to death and in that context she had never been more ready for anything in her entire life.

She was relieved that the path down the hill was a much gentler slope with plenty of flat stretches where the going was easier. Charlotte was determined not to fall, not to cry, and not to give up. She was thankful that Aragorn didn’t try to talk to her. She needed all of her concentration to keep moving forward.

Earlier he had said the road was half a day’s walk from where they had camped the night before. It took them all day, until dusk, to find it.

Instead of camping on the road, Aragorn found a suitable spot a few hundred feet away. A massive oak tree had fallen against a boulder and there, in crux between the tree and the stone, they make camp. Aragorn used his ax to chop a thick branch off of the fallen tree and then rolled over to her so that she could prop her ankle up.

“Don’t remove your shoe” he said, leaning his ax against the boulder. “I do not know if we would be able to get it on again if we were to take it off.”

She leaned back against the tree and sighed. She was so tried she could hardly keep her eyes open. Either the pain had lessened or she had become used to it. He spread out her bedroll beside the boulder and helped her lay down, shifting the branch so that she could elevate her ankle.

“I wish it were later in the summer,” he said, crouching beside her to drape her coat over her body. “There is an herb that sprouts in the late summer and autumn. It is called athelas and would help with the pain, but alas, there is none growing now. I have been looking for it carefully as we have journeyed today in hopes that we might come across some that has sprouted early or perhaps lasted since last winter.”

“It’s okay,” she told him, closing her eyes. “How far did we go today?”

“Five or six miles,” he said.

“Oh, fuck.” That left at least 65 miles left to go. She did some math in her head. 13 days. Thirteen more days to go.

It was growing dark and Aragorn apologized for not lighting a fire. She told him that it was fine. 

It was not fine. 

She was chilled to the bone and shivered so hard that her body was trembling. Aragorn frowned, his forehead creased with worry. She was sitting on her own bedroll and he wrapped his around her as well. He made more yarrow paste and applied it after washing the cut on her cheek. She was still shivering and he covered her with his cloak.

"I have not seen more yarrow," he said after he had applied the last of the paste to her face. "I will keep looking tomorrow. Perhaps we will find some on our way."

She had never more desperately wanted to go home.

Charlotte dozed off at last only to be startled awake when Aragorn put a hand on her shoulder.

“Hush,” he said. His voice was so soft and low she could hardly hear him.

Instantly she was wide awake, heart pounding, body clenched in icy alert. She listened and strained to see in the gloom of the dark forest.

Something was shuffling through the bushes.

Aragon couched beside her, one hand on her shoulder, the other on the hilt of his sword. Moonlight spilled through the leaves. It revealed a creature crawling through the bracken.

A bald headed thing with a face like a turtle, a giant humped back, huge thick arms and stubby legs. 

A troll.

A baby troll.

“Do not move,” Aragorn said in a voice hardly louder than a breath. “Babies are almost completely blind. If it does not panic it will not call for its mother.”

She nodded, too afraid to speak.

The baby troll stopped moving and plopped onto its bottom. It looked around and then rubbed its beady eyes. Slobber dripped from its gaping mouth.

“Ma! Ma!” It squawked.

“Fuck,” said Aragorn. “It’s lost. We have to sneak away. It will sit there and call for its mother until she finds it. And a mother troll is not blind.”

“Let’s go,” she managed to breath out in a whisper.

Aragorn rose without making a sound. He hooked his arms under her armpits and pulled her to her feet. She leaned on him heavily to avoid having to step on her injured ankle. He shuffled to the side, dragging her with him.

Then he froze.

She heard it too. Heavy breathing behind them.

“Wot 'ave we 'ere?”

Aragorn stiffened.

Oh no, oh no, Charlotte thought.

“Stop carryin' on, baby boy. Mum is 'ere and I'm gonna take care of this mess.”

Charlotte pivoted to look behind her. 

The troll was massive. At least ten feet tall with the same slobbering turtle face as the baby. Arms like concrete pillars supported a massive torso with engorged breasts hanging like pendulums. 

The only rational thought that crossed her terrified mind was, Why the hell is the troll Cockney?

Without a word, Aragorn pushed her behind him as he turned to face the troll. “Get under the fallen tree and whatever you do, don’t move,” he hissed.

Despite the agonizing pain she dropped to her knees and crawled the tree and wedged herself under it.

She couldn’t see a thing from that vantage point but she could hear everything.

Aragorn drew his sword. She heard the sound of steel ringing.

Then, a laugh from the troll. “Yer fink yer can 'urt me wiv a broken sword?”

“His sword is freaking broken?” Charlotte sputtered indignantly from under the tree, her pain momentarily forgotten. “Are you kidding me?!”

Then there was a scuffle. Grunts and the sound of something striking stone. The baby troll was still squawking “Ma! Ma! Ma!”

Aragorn’s hand flashed down near her hiding spot as he scooped up his ax. 

“I'm gettin' fed up wiv yer, yer wee man. Oi! Get back ‘ere!”

More sounds of impacts. A grunt from Aragorn. A bellow from the troll.

Charlotte reached up and dug her fingers into the bark of the tree above her. She was laying half on her sword and her ankle was on fire with pain. Why hadn’t he taken her sword?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Yes, the Ring tried to kill her so that Aragorn would be forced to take the Ring.   
> 2\. Do I imagine Arwen embroidering "Estel" with flowers on the edges of Aragorn's handkerchiefs? Yes.   
> 3\. If you're squeamish like me, don't google how to do emergency stitches. Just don't.  
> 4\. I read people's experiences with facial stitches without anything to numb the pain and they rated it as one of the most painful things they've ever experienced. 0/10 would not recommend.  
> 5\. I know that Charlotte and Aragorn probably haven't traveled far enough into the woods, but the little place where they shelter is supposed to be the same place where he shelters with the hobbits in the book.  
> 6\. Plain willow bark tea supposedly tastes like biting into an aspirin tablet. Yuck.   
> 7\. Does anyone else constantly apologize for inconveniencing other people--even if you're actively sick? Or is that just me? (and Charlotte).  
> 8\. Charlotte finally opens her locket when she's feeling her lowest and she can't even see her niece and nephew. Ugh, my heart. My little kids haven't been able to see their favorite aunt in person in almost a year because of covid. I thought about her a lot when I wrote this part.  
> 9\. I gave S the choice to let Aragorn go ahead and have Charlotte wait behind. Under no circumstances was S going to allow Aragorn to leave her alone in the forest.  
> 10\. I used a "Cockney Translator" I found online for the troll dialogue. I'm sure it's awful and not at all realistic.   
> 11\. In the books Aragorn seems to just carry the shards of Narsil around with him. He probably had them at the Prancing Pony so that he could show them to Frodo or something reasonable like that, but I thought the idea of him deciding to try to fight a troll with a broken sword was hilarious.  
> 12\. Thanks for reading and see you later this week when we will actually meet Glorfindel, ha!


	15. Chapter 15

Charlotte slid her hand down her side until she found her belt. She unfastened it, scraping the back of her hands against the rough bark of the tree as she tugged at her belt. When the belt fell slack, she shimmied it out from under her and she pushed it, and her sword, out from under the tree. She hoped that Aragorn would see it.

The troll roared and she saw great arms lift a tree straight out of the ground, roots ripping out of the earth showering soil in all directions. Then the tree disappeared. Seconds later Aragorn shouted and she heard a tremendous crash. 

The troll just threw a tree.

“Ma! Ma! Ma!” the baby wailed.

“I’m not going to die, I’m not going to die, I’m not going to die,” she chanted to herself.

Then Aragron’s hand scooped up the sword.

“Oh, thank God,” she breathed.

“I'm gonna squash yer, wee man. I'll get out me spoons. And then I'm bloody well gonna squash the wee lass, init? And them I'm gonna roast yer. And then, my baby luv, right, yer will eat them boff.”

“I think not,” cried a new voice. Another man.

A twang.

The troll roared. “Why did yer 'ave ter brin' a friend? Where is the sport in that?”

“Halbarad!” shouted Aragorn. “Well met, friend!”

“You seem to be in quite a predicament,” returned Halbarad in a shout.

“Just a small one,” Aragorn said. “Nothing too pressing.”

Halbarad laughed.

The name and the voice sounded familiar, but Charlotte couldn’t quite place them. 

“Yer there, stop on goin' on. I don't like it!” the troll said.

Another twang. 

The baby troll toppled over, an arrow sticking out of the back of its head.

“Whoa,” said Charlotte, eyes wide.

Now the troll was enraged. It screamed and flailed but Aragorn and Halbarad quickly overwhelmed it. A decapitated troll's head rolled across her field of vision. 

She gagged

“Charlotte?” Aragorn called. 

“I’m here,” she croaked weakly.

He knelt down beside the tree and offered her a hand. She scooted out on her back, dragging her injured foot. Once out from under the tree she pushed herself into a sitting position and looked around.

The baby troll was slumped over, dead. The female troll’s head was laying in the ferns beside the baby and the headless body was bleeding in a heap a few feet away. The other man was bent over the troll.

“Was that strictly necessary?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Aragorn. “Very necessary. Can you stand? We need to leave here as quickly as possible.”

“I have a horse on the road,” said the other man. He stood up and in the moonlight Charlotte could see his face.

“You!” she gasped.

It was Halbarad, one of the men that she and Mithrandir met by the abandoned inn so many weeks ago.

“Well met again, Lady Charlotte,” he said, giving her a half bow.

“I thought you were going to the Shipwright,” she managed to say. “What are you doing here?”

“I received a message from Mithrandir that you and Aragorn might be traveling to Imladris through the Ettenmoors,” he said with a shrug. “I am always interested in an adventure.”

She touched the Ring through her dress. It was still there. “This is more adventure than I bargained for,” she said.

Halbarad threw back his head and laughed “You are very funny, Charlotte.”

Aragorn helped her lean against the boulder and he started searching in the dark for her walking stick and crutch. It turned out that the troll had broken both.

“What’s wrong?” Halbarad asked.

“She is injured,” says Aragorn. 

“Yes, I saw the bandages on her face.”

“Her ankle is sprained, possibly broken.”

“Wait, it’s broken?” she interrupted. “You didn’t tell me that.”

He ignored her interruption and instead told Halbarad about their slow journey since her injury.

“She can take my horse,” Halbarad said. 

“I will carry you to the road,” said Aragorn.

As Aragorn carried her through the woods Halbarad told her about how he was traveling through the night when he heard the wails of the baby troll and the loud voice of its mother. 

“I hoped that I would not find you in trouble, but I am glad to have arrived when I did.”

“As am I, friend,” said Aragorn.

The horse was waiting patiently on the road. Its reigns hung from it’s neck. Aragorn lifted her onto the horse. She couldn’t manage to swing her injured leg over the horse so she perched on the saddle with both legs dangling from the same side. The horse took a step forward and her right foot bumped into her left and she winced in pain.

“We will make better time with the horse,” said Aragorn. “Let me help you move your leg.”

It was an awkward affair made even more awkward by the height of the horse. It felt at least twice as tall as the pony Tom Bombadil had given her to ride. Once she was situated, straddling the horse, she clutched the pommel with both hands.

Halbarad secured both of their rucksacks and her camera bag to his saddle bags. “We will run alongside the horse,” he said. “We must leave quickly, other trolls will have been alerted by the sound of the fight.”

“That’s just great,” Charlotte said but her voice sounded strained. Now that the adrenaline of the troll fight is wearing off, her ankle throbed with renewed fire and she could feel fresh blood oozing down her cheek.

She spent the rest of the night clinging to the pommel and trying to stay on the saddle as the men ran on either side of the horse. Halbarad led the horse by its reins and Aragorn kept a hand on the horse's neck as he ran. Both men and horse ran at a steady speed without pausing for rest. She wondered if the fact that Aragorn had an elf ancestor way back in his family tree had something to do with his stamina and ability to function on little sleep.

Charlotte, on the other hand, was exhausted and when they stopped as dawn broke, she was more than happy to practically fall off of the horse and lay down on the ground to sleep.

They woke her a few hours later with more of the medicinal tea, paste for her cut and a bowl of oatmeal.

“Where did you get this?” she asked Aragorn. “I thought the paste was gone?”

“I brought it,” said Halbarad. “Eat the oatmeal first and then drink the tea, it will spare your stomach.”

“Oh, trust me, I know,” she said.

“Tell me, friend” Halbarad said as she devoured the oatmeal. “What are you delivering to Elrond with such haste?”

Charlotte put down her bowl of oatmeal. “Why do you think we are delivering something?” She eyed him with suspicion. 

“Mithrandir said you were on an errand of great importance. I assumed you must have a message to deliver.” Halbarad lifted the little pot full of boiling tea out of the coals and poured some into Aragorn’s wooden cup. 

“I’m afraid I’m not able to tell you why we're going where we are going. We dont' have ill intentions, however, and I hope that for the sake of the friendship you have with Mithrandir that you will believe me and understand that I can’t say any more than that.” She gave him her sternest look. 

Halbarad rocked back on his heels and eyed her keenly. “Fair enough, Charlotte. I will not inquire further.

She sagged with relief. She’d used up what little strength she had with that short speech. She was relieved that he let the matter drop.

Aragorn asked Halbarad about people she didn’t know and she sipped her tea and stared at the fire. Her foot felt like it weighed ten stones, at least, and her cheek felt as if it were burning up. Charlotte fought back a sob of frustration and pain.

“Are you well?” Aragorn asked at once.

If she were feeling better she might have made a sarcastic retort but she was simply too tired to be anything but honest. She shook her head.

“You can lay on my bedroll, too,” Halbarad said. 

Aragorn lifted her from behind and she half hopped, half shuffled over to where Halbarad had laid his bedroll on top of hers. She lowered herself gingerly to the ground. When she swung her legs onto the bedroll she found that Halbarad had placed her camera bag at the foot of her bed so that she could elevate her foot.

“Thanks.” Her lips were cracked and her head was spinning.

Aragorn tucked his bedroll around her and then covered her with his cloak. The men stood beside her and stared down at her with worried faces. They looked rather ridiculous, like worried mother hens, and she gave them a smile.

“I’ll be okay, I will,” she said

“Yes, of course,” agreed Aragorn but he didn’t look any less worried.

She closed her eyes and tried to sleep. She eventually dozed. 

The next thing she was aware of was Halbarad waking her up as he lit a fire at dawn. After oatmeal and more tea the men helped her back onto the horse. 

They set off at the swift pace from the day before, but the pain had become excruciating. Her limp and swollen foot jarred against the side of the horse with every stride. She was dizzy and tired. Her face and neck burned and she was covered in a cold sweat. It was agony. After only an hour she could bear it no longer and with a face wet with tears she begged the men to stop.

They stopped at once and she apologized over and over.

Aragorn lifted her from the horse and she flopped limply in his arms. Halbarad pulled off his glove and felt her face.

“She’s feverish. The wound?”

Charlotte felt Aragorn nod.

“We are by three days from Imladris at our current pace,” said Halbarad.

“Close enough for a litter to be brought to her.”

“What? What are you talking about?” Charlotte mumbled.

“You are the better rider,” Halbarad told Aragorn.

“No, don’t leave me,” she said, gripping his sleeve.

“I will go then. I will bring back help,” said Halbarad. 

“Let us ride on ahead to that bend in the path. There the land is flat and we can make camp behind those boulders while we wait for Halbarad’s return,” said Aragorn pointing down the road.

The land ahead was level and grassy beneath the trees. A few meters from the road there was a tumble of rocks the size of cars. If she and Aragorn camped there while they waited they would be sheltered from view of the road and Aragorn would have a vantage point from which to see the road in both directions. 

She was so tired and dizzy that she didn’t even protest when Aragorn carried her around the rocks. He and Halbarad made up a bed again by layering bedrolls. Before he left, Halbarad helped Aragorn amass a large pile of firewood, and refill the water skins at a creek. He left his saddle bags full of supplies beside her.

“I will return as soon as possible,” he said.

Aragorn spoke to him in a language that she could not understand. It wasn’t the Westron the hobbits spoke. It sounded like a dialect of English she’d never heard before. Aragorn’s words were stern and Halbarad sobered. He nodded and bowed to Aragorn in deference. Then he turned and bowed to Charlotte.

“I will be swift, I promise.”

He scrambled over the rocks and they soon heard the horse racing away down the road.

“What did you say to him?” she asked Aragorn as he squatted beside the saddlebags and rummaged through them.

“I reminded him that speed is essential,” he said.

She wasn’t sure she believed him. “You didn’t tell him about the…” she trailed off and touch the chain around her neck.

“No!” He looked a little offended. “I would not betray your trust.”

“Okay, well, good.” She tipped her head back and stared up at the tree branches above. Her left cheek felt swollen and her skin was taunt and hot.

Aragorn made a fire and brewed more tea. She watched him, dully. He didn’t put as many wood chips into the tea. He was rationing the chips. When he offered her the tea, she pushed herself up, fighting back a groan. Her head was heavy and she was exhausted just by the small motion. She tried to sip the tea, but her lips were clumsy. He watched her struggle and then laid a hand on her arm. 

“Wait here.”

“I can’t go anywhere,” she muttered. 

He tramped off into the forest. The underbrush was thick wherever the branches above let down enough light but relatively sparse elsewhere. In her past experience in the woods (which admittedly wasn’t much), they had been quiet and peaceful. This forest was not. There were birds signing, the buzz of insects and the sounds of small animals rustling along the forest floor. Oliver would have loved it. 

The thought of her brother brought fresh tears to her eyes. They stung as they washed over her stitches.

Aragorn returned with several long reed-like plants. He cut off the ends of one and handed it to her. It was hollow. A straw.

“Thanks,” she said. 

Through the straw she drank the tea. Halbarad had had a pot of his own with his gear and while Aragorn had made tea in his pot, he’d made more oatmeal in Halbarad’s. The oatmeal was too thick for the straw so he fed it to her, tiny bite by tiny bite. She tried to eat as much as possible but it was hard to eat. She wasn’t hungry. She was chilled and she hurt. And her whole head felt tight and hot.

When she was done eating, he lowered her onto her back. He took the scarf off of her face to check her stitches. Even his gentle touch was painful and she winced and shied away from him.

“I will have to clean it again,” he said. He poured the rest of the tea from the pot into her empty cup. Then he refilled the pot with water and set it into the coals. The fire was hot and soon it boiled. He washed the scarf and his handkerchief in the boiling water. He draped the scarf over a branch to dry and then he dabbed her face with the handkerchief. It was still steaming hot from the water and she whimpered. “I am sorry, Charlotte,” he murmured. 

After a fresh application of yarrow paste he set about cleaning up their little camp. He told her that fresh air might do the wound some good and it would give the scarf time to dry. She watched him clean the pots and dishes and pack them away. Then he scraped ashes over the fire.

“We will be able to quickly reignite it when we have need of it,” he explained when he saw her watching. “We will be here for a few days, at least, and this will be much more convenient.”

He sat across from her and took out her sword. Charlotte closed her eyes. She hated that thing.

“I knew it was bad luck,” she mumbled.

“What was that?”

“The sword, it’s cursed or something.” She opened her eyes to look at him.

He lifted it and looked down the blade, then he turned it over in his hands. He inspected the hilt and the opal. He ran his thumb down the flat of the blade. “This sword is not cursed. What happened was an accident.”

“Why? Why did it happen?”

He shrugged. “I do not know.”

“Was it…” she touched the Ring through her dress. “Was it this?”

“Hmmmm,” he said thoughtfully. He withdrew a leather pouch from his rucksack and took out a stone and a little bottle. The bottle contained oil and he spread a thin film of oil over the surface of the stone. He stroked the edge of the sword with the stone, contemplatively. “What do you think?”

Charlotte looked back up at the tree branches above. “I think that if I were a magic ring, and someone immune to magic was carrying me, I’d do anything to get away to someone more susceptible.”

“Your theory sounds reasonable,” he said. 

“So was it’s plan to kill me in the fall so that you would have to carry the it?”

“I do not know if it is capable of planning,” he said. He turned the sword over and set to work running the stone down its other side. “Who can tell what sentience such an artifact can hold?”

“It’s evil and I hate it.”

“As do I.”

Charlotte drifted off into a fitful sleep. When she woke up her lips were cracked and her whole body ached. Her ankle throbbed, her cheek stabbed and all of her bones felt bruised. She was freezing but too uncoordinated to adjust the bedroll and cloak to cover her better.

Aragorn, seeing her struggling, tucked them around her. He gave her water to sip from her water bottle with one of the reed-straws.

“You have a fever,” he said.

“I think the cut’s infected.” Charlotte felt wretched.

“It is,” he said.

“I’m going to die.”

“You will not die,” he said.

“Yes, I’m going to. Don’t let the Ring win, okay? Frodo has to put it in the volcano.”

“Frodo?”

“The hobbit. And the white wizard is really evil. Did you know that? My face hurts. Please take me home, Aragorn. I don’t want to die here. I just want my mum.”

A straw with more tea pressed between her lips. Charlotte drank some and then pushed his hands away. “Who’s the creepy bald man? He’s evil. You have to keep him away from the Ring. He wants it.” A chill swept through her body so violently it left her teeth chattering and limbs quivering in its wake.

Aragorn laid one hand on her forehead and the other on her chest. He started to sing. 

His song was warm like green meadow under midsummer sun. The words were peculiar, a bit like Latin, and she couldn’t understand them. But she felt a summer breeze sweep the chills away, and she saw brilliant white clouds silhouetted against a clear blue sky. She smelled the spicy mix of dry and fresh grass and heard the buzz of insects heavy in the air. Beneath her was a pillow of soft, green grass and a crown of flowers blossomed around her head.

When she opened her eyes it was late afternoon. Aragorn had rekindled the fire and water was boiling. 

Her fever had ebbed and she felt weak, but her mind felt clear and unmuddled.

“Hi,” she croaked.

He looked up at her, and though he did not smile, he looked relieved. “Good afternoon,” he said. He crumbled some of the bread into the boiling water.

She watched him in silence as he prepared a meal. But her ankle felt as if it were crushed within a vice and her face hurt. “Do you know any more songs?” 

“There is a song that a friend of mine was writing when last I saw him. It is not a song of healing, but perhaps it will provide distraction,” he said. “Shall I sing it for you?”

“Yes, please,” she said.

He sang.

It was a song about a hero on a hopeless quest to save the world. When all seemed lost, the gods took pity on him and intervened to save the world. The price the hero had to pay, was to be separated from his beloved sons and his wife. He sailed the night sky for all time bearing a shining jewel on his forehead. The melody was slow but captivating and she could almost see the scenes painted by the lyrics. At last he fell silent.

“So, the hero was turned into a star?” she asked, breaking the silence.

“Yes, the Star of Eärendil, the Morning Star.”

“Eärendil?” The name sounded familiar. Mithrandir had spoken of the ‘star of Eärendil,’ and Aragorn had mentioned that name when he had been explaining the complicated family tree. “Wasn’t that the name of Elrond’s dad?”

“You have a good memory,” said Aragorn with a smile.

“Elrond’s dad is a star? Why didn’t you mention that earlier?”

“I seem to recall you saying you didn’t want to hear too much about complicated family trees…”

“Wait,” she said, holding up a hand, her discomfort and pain momentarily forgotten, “Doesn’t that mean that your great-great-great-whatever grandfather is a star?”

“It would seem so,” said Aragorn, not at all hiding his amusement at her expense.

“You’re right. I really don’t want to hear about complicated family trees.”

Halbarad had some cheese tucked away in his saddlebags (how long that had been there she didn’t want to know) and Aragorn used it to make a cheesy soup with crumbled stale bread and water.

“It could use a good beer to add to the flavor,” he said as he stirred it. 

“In the soup? That’s very German of you.”

“German?” he asks.

“It’s…” and then she found that she didn’t have the energy to explain. “Nevermind. Thank you for the soup.” She took her portion and sipped as much as she was able through the straw.

At night he banked the fire so that even the glowing embers were darkened. She was too tense to sleep. She started and jumped at every noise. Her fever grew in strength until she was paralyzed in fear of the swaying branches over head which looked all too similar to gnarled hands reaching down to snatch her. When she closed her eyes she could see the decapitated troll head leering at her. She could hear the baby troll calling out “Ma! Ma! Ma!”

She thought she was dreaming when Aragorn stood up in the plate dawn light and shot a deer not ten meters away with Halbarad’s bow and arrow. But then he suddenly had venison broth in her bowl with a fresh straw at her lips. 

“Providence smiles on us,” he said.

“Who’s Providence? Is that Elbereth’s friend?” she asked.

Later he cleaned her face again. She was so dizzy it felt as if he was swirling around and around her head. “It runs deep,” he said. Or had he? She couldn’t tell. He sang the song of the summer meadow again, but the words washed over her with little effect. She tried to roll over, forgetting her ankle, and was rewarded with a pain so sharp and intense that she sat up and cried out. 

“I want to examine your ankle,” he said.

“No.” She feebly pushed his hands away. 

He worked her trainer off, rocking it back and forth. Her foot was so swollen that her trainer was stretched to its limit. 

“Please no,” she sobbed. 

Her right foot was at least three times the size of left, mottled purple and banded with red-black indentations from her trainer. It burned red hot and pulsed with pain. 

Aragorn touched it and she yelped and jerked her foot away. A wave of pain that left her sick to her stomach rolled across her. She slumped onto her back, crying.

“I am sorry, Charlotte,” he said. “I will get some rags wet in the creek and I will bind it again.”

He was not gone long and when he returned she saw that he had torn up one of his spare tunics into long strips and soaked them in water. The creek was icy cold and the cloth was still cold. He wrapped it tightly to give it support. The cold from the water gave a little relief to the pain. When he offered to make some more tea she took his offer gladly. She was devastated when she saw him tip his pouch upside down over the boiling water. That was the last of the willow bark. She hadn’t seen a willow tree since she and Mithrandir left Tom Bombadil’s forest. There was enough to make one full strength cup of tea and a few increasingly weaker cups. She drank the first cup and closed her eyes and tried to sleep. 

The sound of bells woke her.

The dim tinkle of little bells jangling and the thunder of horse hooves riding hard.

She sat up, dazed and disoriented. It was afternoon again and Aragorn was sitting still and attentive beside her, listening. Then a grin of joy filled his face. 

“Ah ha!” he said in delight and sprang to his feet. He bounded over the rocks and out of sight. 

She pushed herself up onto her elbows, her bedroll and Aragorn’s cloak slipping from from her shoulders. She heard him running through the tall grass and then stopping. A pause and then a clear ringing voice called out: “At last, Westman! Well, met!”

She had never heard a voice like that before. Rich and clear. Deep and full. Pure as a spring of water.

“Well met, old friend!” It was Aragorn’s voice. 

The hooves slowed and stopped, the bells sending out a symphony of tinkles. The horse must have tossed its head.

“Halbarad has sent us to look for you,” said the stranger.

“Yes, my friend is injured and cannot travel any further.”

“So he said.” She could hear Aragorn and the stranger drawing near. “There is a cart coming behind me, but I have ridden ahead to share my meager skills in healing.”

“Meager?” Aragorn laughed. “You discredit yourself.”

“Perhaps,” said the stranger and then he and Aragorn climbed over the boulders and dropped down beside her.

The stranger was tall, taller than Aragorn. His hair, the color of summer light in the golden hour, fell freely over his shoulders. He was dressed in a garment of green, belted with a belt of leather and gold. He had tall boots that reached his knees and a sword hung from his belt. She lifted her eyes from his feet and stared at his face. His eyes were brilliantly blue. The color of the center of a cloudless sky and seemed to be lit from within.

He knelt next to her heedless of the dirt, laying a satchel beside him and said, “I am Glorfindel. I dwell in the House of Elrond.”

“Hi,” she managed, awed by his presence. There was an air of intensity about him that she didn’t know what to do with. It was not unsettling, but it was not exactly normal either.

“May I see your face?” he asked.

She nodded. She felt grungy and smelly and small and imperfect compared to him, but he didn’t seem to notice.

He ran his fingers lightly over the scarf and then deftly removed it. “Ai!” he cried at the sight of her wound. He shook his head. A finger traced the puckered ridge of stitches. “What happened, little friend?”

“I lost a sword fight with a hill,” Charlotte said.

His concern vanished, replaced with a sparkling amusement that was so compelling that she found herself smiling in return despite the pain.

“Don’t worry, I won,” she said.

“I would hate to see the hill,” he said, his voice filled with amusement. He opened the satchel and took out a brown glass jar. He broke the wax seal and it smelled like mint and thyme. “May I?”

At her nod, he smeared a thick yellow-green paste on her cheek. It tingled but did not sting. His touch was feather light. From the satchel he took a long snow white ribbon of gauze. He tenderly wrapped her wounded cheek. When he finished, Charlotte laid back down. For the first time in days the pain in her cheek faded into the background. He drew the bedroll and cloak up to her chin and laid a hand on her forehead. When he lifted his hand she felt strangely bereft.

Next he turned his attention to her ankle. Aragorn stood beside him, worried, his arms crossed over his chest. Glorfindel ran his fingers so lightly over the strips of bound cloth on her ankle that she couldn’t even feel them. He cupped her heel in one hand, and ran his other up and down over her ankle, her shin, her calf and her foot. Ordinarily such light touches would have been ticklish, but save for a faint warmth, she barely felt them. The pain grew easier and she relaxed the tension out of her shoulders.

“In my bags I have some medicines that will help with the pain, but one of the bones is broken and is offset from its proper position. Already your body is trying to mend the break but if it continues on its course you will be left with pain your whole life long. I do not have the skills to set it right, but in Imladris Elrond will be able to.” He withdrew his hands and stood and whistled.

From behind the rocks on the road she heard the horse nicker in response and then heard the sound of the horse moving through the grass and coming around the boulders. The horse was huge, bigger than Halbarad’s, but with such a tall rider it had to be big, she supposed. Its coat was dappled white and gray and its mane and tail were white. It had no reins and only a simple saddle with stirrups and two saddlebags on its back. Little silver bells jingled on the saddle with each step. It stopped at the edge of the campsite and lowered its head, waiting.

“Asfaloth, my horse,” said Glorfindel, his voice warm. He crossed the camp in two strides and opened one of the saddle bags.

Aragorn crouched beside her and spoke in a low voice. “You can trust Glorfindel. He is loyal and true.”

“Does he have x-ray fingers?” she whispered back.

Aragorn wrinkled his forehead in confusion. “I do not understand…”

“Here I have salve for your ankle and a tonic to numb the pain,” said Glorfindel, seemingly happy to play oblivious to their whispered conversation. “May I unwrap your ankle?”

She nodded. If the ankle salve was half as effective as the cheek salve, she wanted him to apply it as soon as possible

He knelt next to her again and she pulled the bedroll to the side. He was as gentle as he was before as he deftly removed the rags Aragorn used to bind her ankle. The bruising, if possible, looked even worse than it did before. She clenched her teeth and shut her eyes, willing herself not to cry in front of this stranger. 

“What is your name?” he asked. She heard him rubbing the salve between his palms before he began to massage it onto her ankle.

“I’m Charlotte,” She said, screwing up her face at the pain. But she relaxed little by little as with each stroke of his hands her ankle numbed a little more.

“Well met, Charlotte.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “How did you end up with such an injury?”

“Aragorn got us lost.”

“I did not!”

“Ai, I am not surprised,” said Glorfindel. “He was forever getting lost as a child.”

“You knew him when he was a kid?” Charlotte opened her eyes.

“I did indeed. He grew up in Imladris. I was his tutor in swordplay.” Glorfindel laid her ankle down on the bedroll and reached for a folded length of linen bandage. “Once we spent the better part of an evening combing the valley looking for a lost seven year old. We finally found him clinging to the top of a tree, too frightened to climb back down.”

She couldn’t help the smile that tugged the corner of her mouth. Aragorn sat beside the fire with his face in his hands.

“Do you have any other embarrassing stories about him?”

“Hundreds,” said Glorfindel with a smile of delight. “So very many embarrassing stories.”

“Excellent,” Charlotte said. “We’re going to be good friends.”

He laughed and his laugh was so bright and good natured that she couldn’t help but laugh with him. He tied off the bandage and tucks the ends neatly underneath. 

The tonic was next. It was in a green glass bottle and when he opened it she caught the faint scent of wildflowers. 

“Drink it all,” he said as he handed it to her. 

The bottle, which had looked small and light in his large hands, was bigger and heavier than she expected. The tonic was thick like honey but not sweet. The flavor reminded her of the sharp taste of fresh basil or mint. It warmed her like alcohol but when that feeling dissipated she was left with only the sensation of pain washing away from her body like waves carrying away a sandcastle.

Charlotte sighed. For the first time in days nothing hurt. Exhaustion, previously held at bay by the pain, overwhelmed her, and she fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Halbarad to the rescue!  
> 2\. "The baby troll toppled over, an arrow sticking out of the back of its head." Out of context this the most horrifying sentence I have ever written.  
> 3\. I dislike writing action. Solution? Limit my POV character's field of vision, ha!  
> 4\. Yes, Charlotte (and S) continue to be suspicious and paranoid about everyone's intentions regarding the Ring. The one person she does end up marginally trusting has a name that rhymes with Dorf-in-del. What can I say? He's a charmer.  
> 5\. 10 stones is 140 lbs. Is she overly dramatic when injured? Yes.  
> 6\. I imagine that Aragorn and Halbarad spoke a dialect of Adûnaic with each other.  
> 7\. I hope that my description of Charlotte's spreading infection from her cut and her fever was clear enough to follow and not too difficult to read.  
> 8\. Aragorn is 500% convinced that the Ring was behind her freak accident (and he's right), but he choose to be vague with Charlotte because he can tell she's holding herself together by a thin thread. He doesn't want to distress her any more than is necessary.  
> 9\. So Charlotte basically spills the plot of the movies (as S remembered them) to Aragorn in her fever dream. I thought that S would for sure pick up on this. She did not. And when I saw that she didn't realize what Charlotte had let slip...well, I filed that information away to spring on her later when she least expected it--like all best friends do, muhahahaha!  
> 10\. Aragorn's song is in Quenya.  
> 11\. I have made Aragorn's bread and cheese soup. It's very filling, if a little bland. I did not add beer to mine, but I did add cayenne pepper and paprika along with salt and pepper.  
> 12\. Glorfindel! At last! I just want to say that I don't know who originated the trope of Glorfindel as Mr. Sunshine, but I do know that I am here for it.  
> 13\. Glorfindel arrives with medicine and bandages because Halbarad told the elves that Charlotte was injured. In the books they had no idea that Frodo had been stabbed by the Witch King.  
> 14\. When I was in labor with my oldest, my epidurals failed (yes, multiple times, it sucked). But when they gave me a spinal block for a c-section the sudden absence of pain after so very many long hours of intense pain left me so drowsy from relief of the pain that I dozed off almost at once. I tried to capture that feeling with Charlotte at the end of the chapter.  
> 15\. I hope you enjoyed the chapter, see you all next week!


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I wrote the story for S, I wrote little side scenes from other character's POV so that I could get a handle of their motivations. There aren't that many, but I'll be posting them here (https://archiveofourown.org/works/29790687) about the same time I update the corresponding chapter here.

She only slept for a few hours before she woke up feeling more refreshed than she had since she left Maura behind in Sûzat. Her ankle and cheek hurt again, but it was a dull ache and not a stabbing pain. Mercifully her fever had broken. She was sweaty, but her body didn’t ache and she wasn’t chilled anymore. She sat up and found a long gray-green cloak draped over her. It matched Glorfindel’s clothes and she guessed that it was his.

Aragorn and Glorfindel were lounging beside the fire, talking quietly. Glorfindel looked at her when she sat up, but only gave her a quick smile before returning to his conversation. As a person who hated talking to anyone the moment she woke up, she was grateful for his discretion

She pushed the cloaks and bedrolls to the side so that she could look at her ankle. The bandages seemed a little looser, indicating that the swelling had gone down. The bruises were less red and more green. A tiny bit of progress at least. She tugged the covers back over her ankle and laid down again, resting her good cheek on her rolled up coat. 

Charlotte stared at Glorfindel, trying not to be obvious. He was the first elf she had ever seen. His name, which essentially meant ‘Goldilocks,’ was incredibly apt. His silky gold hair would be the shining star of any shampoo ad back home. As she had noticed before, he was very tall, but unlike tall men who always looked a little disproportionate with arms and legs that were too long, or a face with features that were too big, Glorfindel was perfectly proportionate. Also, his face was exactly symmetrical which would have been uncanny if it weren’t also so lovely. She never thought it was possible for someone to look so pretty without also looking effeminate. But there was nothing effeminate about Glorfindel. Long hair and symmetrical face aside, he was definitely male. 

Glorfindel had the audacity to wink at her.

She yelped in surprise and covered her eyes with her hands, cheeks on fire at having been caught.

She was eternally grateful that Glorfindel didn’t tell Aragorn that she was staring at him or why she yelped. She was also grateful that Aragorn didn’t ask what was wrong, if anything he looked exasperated with the elf. 

In addition to the salve and tonic, Glorfindel brought food with him. Fresh bread, dried apple slices, walnuts and raisins. Even with the minty ointment on her face, it was still too painful to chew. Charlotte looked longingly at the food. Aragorn (bless him) soaked the dried apple slices in hot water to soften them. Glorfindel offered her a silver studded flask filled with something clear and tasteless like water, but she felt more refreshed and clear headed after only a few sips than she ever had from any water before.

“If you are willing, Charlotte,” he said, “You can ride Asfaloth and we will walk beside you. Traveling thus we may meet the cart this evening and tomorrow ford the river.”

“But only if you are feeling up to it,” said Aragorn. “I do not want to aggravate your injuries more than we already have.”

She wiggled her toes. For the first time in days she could do so without blinding pain. Her cheek hurt, but the pain was dull and no longer sharp.

“Let’s go ride and meet the cart. I’m not comfortable waiting in the forest any longer than necessary.”

“Excellent,” said Glorfindel, springing to his feet. “Let us be on our way.”

He and Aragorn packed the saddlebags and rucksacks. They each took a rucksack and the saddlebags were all secured on the horse. They left collecting the bedrolls for last.

She pulled herself up to a standing position for the first time in days and leaned heavily on a boulder. She folded up Glorfindel’s cloak and when he approached, she handed it back. 

“Thank you.”

He smiled. “You are very welcome.”

Glorfindel was the one to lift her onto his horse’s back as he was the tallest. He lifted her up as if she were nothing more than a child and deposited her on the saddle in such a way that she could swing her uninjured leg over the horse’s back herself. There was nothing to hold onto, no reins, and she froze.

“Do not be afraid,” he said. “Asfaloth is gentle and sure footed. You will not fall. See here? Wrap your fingers in his mane. Don’t worry, you will not hurt him. There, just like that.”

Asfaloth’s white mane was as silky soft as Glorfindel’s hair looked.

“You have got to tell me where you get your shampoo,” she said.

Glorfindel laughed. “What is shampoo?”

“Never mind.”

Glorfindel walked on one side and Aragorn on the other. Instead of running as Aragorn and Halbarad had before, they set a brisk pace walking. Neither held or touched Asfaloth but the horse followed their lead. Dozens of tiny bells threaded through Asfaloth’s mane and hanging from his saddle jingle with each step. Charlotte slipped one hand out of his mane and tentatively patted his neck. Asfaloth snorted.

“Did I hurt him?” she asked.

“No,” said Glorfindel. “He’s content. I think he likes you.”

She patted his neck again. “I like him, too.”

The horse snorted.

“This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” said Glorfindel. “I’m always telling him he needs to make more friends.”

The horse bumped the elf’s shoulder with his nose and Glorfindel laughed.

“Are all elves like you?” Charlotte asked in wonder.

“Irreverent, silly and tall?” asked Aragorn.

“And shiny, you are kind of shiny,” she added.

Glorfindel laughed. She could listen to his laugh all day. “I am possibly the most irreverent, tallest, silliest, and shiniest of them all.”

Charlotte wondered if this was why Mithrandir had always cackled when she talked about elves from Earth. Even with her vague memories of the films, until she met Glorfindel she had half expected elves to be short with striped stockings and pointed hats. She couldn’t imagine Glorfindel making toys or standing watch like a garden gnome.

“What is Imladris like?” she asked. “Aragorn didn’t describe it much except that it’s pretty.”

“Home,” said Glorfindel, all traces of teasing gone. “It is home.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. The word ‘home’ cut into her heart as sharply as the sword blade had cut her cheek. She reached up and clutched the locket through her dress. What she wouldn’t give to be going home, too.

———

She wasn’t sure how much further they traveled before Aragorn asked Glorfindel about a mutual friend and the two started sharing news and stories. Every now and then, one of them paused to fill Charlotte in on who they were talking about so that she didn’t feel left out. She was tired and her ankle and cheek were aching again so she just nodded and only paid half a mind to what they were saying. There was some grousing about an elf named Gildor Inglorion who forgot to bring his flute when he left on a trip and how he turned around and made his entire company go back for it. And then someone named Erestor who was having the library repainted again to the consternation of everyone. And about Arwen, the daughter of Elrond, who would soon be returning after a long time away. 

When Glorfindel brought up Arwen, the conversation took on a different tone, more like an older brother teasing a younger brother about a crush.

And then, through the cloud of exhaustion, she remembered the movie.

“Oh my goodness! You’re in love with Arwen!” she blurted.

Aragorn turned beet red.

“You said that elves and humans only got married thousands of years ago, but that’s not true! You’re going to marry Arwen and she’s an elf! Wait…” She trailed off remembering her conversation about Elrond and his twin brother. “Aren’t you guys cousins?”

“They are,” said Glorfindel with the biggest shit-eating grin she had ever seen. “About 64, or is it 65, generations removed.”

“First cousins sixty three times removed,” Aragorn muttered.

“But who pays attention to little things like that?” Glorfindel cackled.

“I’m sure that everyone is related when you go that far back,” Charlotte said, trying to make Aragorn feel less awkward.

“Yes, but when her father has been alive for all of those generations…” Glorfindel trailed off with a knowing smirk.

This was clearly a well tread line of teasing.

“Weren’t your parents also cousins?” Aragorn said sourly.

“Ah, well, everyone was cousins then,” said Glorfindel. “What’s more scandalous is the age difference,” he whispered to her loudly. “She’s at least two thousand years older than him.”

Charlotte giggled.

“You’re incorrigible,” said Aragorn.

“I do try,” said Glorfindel cheerfully. To her he said, “But don’t take my teasing as truth, Charlotte. Arwen and Aragorn bring happiness to each other. True love like that is rare and precious. They will do well to cherish it.”

She had at least half a dozen more quips at Aragorn’s expense on the tip of her tongue but they melted away in the face of Glorfindel’s sincerity and kindness towards his friend. Instead she turned to Aragorn and asked, “Can I be in the wedding?”

“I suppose you will have to be now,” he said, but he was trying not to smile.

For a long time the three traveled in companionable silence. Although it had been fun teasing Aragorn, Charlotte was glad for the silence. The medicines that Glorfindel had brought were wearing off and she became increasingly more aware of her swollen, throbbing ankle and the stiff, sharp pain in her cheek. Long before she could see or hear them, Glorfindel spotted the cart and whistled loudly. She thought that she heard a faint returning whistle. 

“They will stop and make camp,” he said. “We will meet them up ahead.”

She was glad. It had been at least four hours since they left their campsite. She was so tired she knew that she could easily fall asleep on Asfaloth’s back.

They traveled, she guessed, about two more kilometers, before they reached the elves and the cart. Halbarad was there with them. They had made camp in a clearing just off of the road and lit a large fire. 

“What about the trolls?” she whispered to Aragorn as they approached.

“No troll would dare attack an encampment of elves,” he said.

There were two elves with Halbarad. They were twins and introduce themselves as the sons of Elrond. She immediately forgot their names except that they both began with “El,” but they were as friendly and teasing as Glorfindel and she liked them at once. They were shorter than Glorfindel but a bit taller than Aragorn. There was a slight resemblance between the twins and the man, mostly in their coloring: black hair and gray eyes, but nothing that definitively pointed to a shared ancestor. The twins didn’t resemble Glorfindel much either, despite the fact that they were all elves. Their faces were square and angular with high and prominent cheekbones. And, she realized after some scrutiny, their faces not perfectly symmetrical like Glorfindel’s. She wondered if it had to do with their grandfather being a star. 

With a quiet word to his horse, Glorfindel led it to the cart. Aragorn greeted Halbarad and the twins with firm back slaps and hugs. There was a bed made up in the cart with bedding and covers that looked deliciously soft and inviting. Glorfindel lifted her off of the horse and into the cart with one smooth motion. One of the twins carried over a pot of warm water and a washcloth. Charlotte showered him with a profusion of thanks which he waved off with a smile.

“You must be famished after days with only Aragorn’s cooking to sustain you. We will have something edible prepared shortly.”

“I am an excellent cook!” Aragorn protested.

Halbarad choked on some water as he tried to suppress a laugh.

“He’s not that bad,” she said, feeling a little sorry for Aragorn. It reminded her of how Luke was always the one that she and Oliver teased when they were kids.

“That is true,” said the other twin from where he was crouched by the fire stirring a pot. “You’re not dead yet.”

Charlotte ducked her head to hide a smile.

Glorfindel patted her shoulder and then he and the twin-who-brought-the-water, turned back to the fire. While all of the men and elves talked and joked, Charlotte washed her face and hands as well as she was able. She cautiously dabbed her injured cheek around her bandage. Even her tentatively swipes with the cloth were agonizing. She wanted to ask for more medicine but didn’t know how to bring it up without seeming like she was whining or complaining. She hated how weak and needy she had become since falling down the hill.

Somehow the twin realized as soon as she was done with the water because he returned to take the cloth and pot. Charlotte leaned back on the bedding. It was as soft as it looked. She felt bad that she was so dirty. Her hair was a greasy mess, her dress was covered in dirt and sticks and leaves. She closed her eyes. For the hundredth time she wished she could go home. She’d even take going back to her flat filled with boxes in Glasgow. She really would.

“Charlotte?”

It was Glorfindel.

“Can Elrohir look at your injuries? He may be able to help where I cannot.”

She nodded. The twin who had brought the water climbed into the cart. He was dressed in blue. The other twin was dressed in green. He crouched beside her and slowly unwrapped the bandages on her face. His touch is as light as Glorfindel, and his face his serene and calm. She can’t tell what he made of her cut as he cleaned it with warm water and applies more salve.

“Did Aragorn stitch this?” he asked.

“Yes. He did it right after it happened.”

“He has the hands of a healer. There will hardly be a scar.”

“Oh, that’s good, I guess,” she said.

Next he turned his attention to her ankle. She breathed deeply through the pain. She’d been trying her best to ignore it, but the discomfort of having the supportive bandages removed brought it all to the forefront.

“It appears to be broken,” said Elrohir, running his fingers lightly over the bruising. “A broken leg or arm I can set and mend, but this? I would rather my father see to this.”

“I thought you might say that,” said Glorfindel. “But I hoped to be wrong.”

“Apply more salve and if has been twelve hours since her first dose, she can have more tonic,” Elrohir told him. To her he said, “I am sorry, Charlotte. I wish I could help, but we will see that you are not in pain until we return to Imladris.”

Aragorn retrieved the salve and tonic from Glorfindel’s bag and passed them to the elf. Glorfindel worked as quickly and as gently as he did earlier in the day as he massaged the salve onto her ankle and bandaged it again.

“I am sorry that I cannot give you more tonic now,” he said, hanging his head. “Rest as much as you can. I will bring it to you as soon as I am able.” He touched her hand before leaping from the cart and returning to the others.

Despite her exhaustion while they traveled, she didn’t feel tired anymore. She lay in the cart and stared at the sky above her head. It was gold in the late afternoon sun. Halbarad was cracking jokes with the twins and every now and then Glorfindel would add a comment that made the entire group roar with laughter. Even though she didn’t get the punchline, she found herself smiling anyway. There was something dangerously contagious about the sound of elf laughter.

Aragorn poked his head over the edge of the cart. He had a bowl of broth in one hand and a cup of willow bark tea in the other. She shifted herself so that she could lean against the side of the cart and thanked him. He handed the food to her with a smile. She ate slowly. The broth was good. It actually was much better than anything Aragorn had made for her. She would never tell him, though. The same way she would never (ever) tell Laura that her minced meat pies at Christmas were always tasteless and dry.

When she finished, she set the empty bowl and cup on the floor of the cart, next to the makeshift bed and laid back down. It was growing dark and she looked up at the first stars of evening twinkling in the gray-blue twilit sky. Charlotte pulled the soft duvet up to her chin and closed her eyes. She could feel her fever returning. She shook her head as if she could shake it away. Beside the fire Aragorn regaled Glorfindel and the twins with the story of their journey and then the topic shifted to the unusually fair weather. Her throat hurt and her body ached. She wished she could roll over and curl up in a tight ball under the blankets. 

Sometime later the elves began to sing. She thought that their songs would be as merry and carefree as their personalities, but the song was gentle and reverent. A hymn, she realized as she listened to their voices blend and harmonize. A hymn to Elbereth. A balm to her fevered mind. It was to the sound of their voices that she fell asleep.

Glorfindel woke her when the night was dark to give her more tonic. He leaned over the edge of the cart, the bottle in one hand, the other touched her cheek.

She blinked, groggy.

“Glorfindel, why do you glow in the dark?” she asked, still half asleep.

She could see him smile even though it was pitch dark. “Elf,” he said in reply.

“That’s weird.” she downed the tonic, handed the bottle to him and went back to sleep.

———

Her fever had broken during the night, but she was left feeling weaker than she had the day before. Even lifting spoonfuls of oatmeal to her lips was exhausting. If she hadn’t felt so poorly she would have wanted to ride Asfaloth again, but she was too weary to even ask. Elrohir reapplied medicine to her face and ankle and bound them both with fresh bandages. 

“We will reach Imladris before noon,” he said. “My brother will ride ahead to let my father know that we are coming.”

She nodded without lifting her head from the pillow. 

Elrohir frowned and when he climbed down from the cart she heard him talking with the others, but she could not make out what he said. A short time later Elrohir’s brother left, riding on Halbarad’s horse. She wished that someone would mentioned the other brother’s name. Luke and Oliver had always looked alike—despite being four years apart in age. She wondered if anyone had ever confused them. 

Aragorn and Halbarad climbed onto the cart. She couldn’t see Elrohir, but she heard him from somewhere ahead, talking to the two Rangers. She was facing the opposite direction, her back to the men, looking out of the back of the cart. Glorfindel and Asfaloth rode behind the cart so that she could see him. 

For the first hour or so she lay in the cart, mindlessly watching Asfaloth as the cart rolled along. Aragorn and Halbarad were discussing crop rotation in a village she had never heard of with Elrohir chiming in from time to time. Glorfindel was as quiet as she was, though his quiet was of a watchful sort. He looked about in all directions, cocking his head to the side to listen to sounds she could not hear. 

All at once he snickered.

“What?” she asked.

He looked at her, with a wide grin. “A greedy squirrel tried to leap from branch to branch with too many nuts in its mouth. It missed by this much,” He held up two pinched fingers. “ And fell head over tail to the ground.”

She stared at him blankly. There must be, she thought, some nuance to elf humor that she was missing entirely.

As if sensing that she didn’t understand him, he changed the subject. “From whence have you come, Charlotte?”

“Far away,” she said softly. And then, without knowing quite why, she added, “I probably can’t ever go back either.”

Instead of teasing, he gave her a sober look. “That is a heavy truth to shoulder for one so young.”

“I’m not that young.”

“No,” he agreed. “You are not.”

Ordinarily she would have felt offended by the implication that she was old, but the way Glorfindel said it conveyed that he saw her as an equal, despite what was probably thousands of years of difference between their ages.

“Have you always lived in Imladris?” she asked. 

“No, I once lived in a city called Gondolin.”

“Gondolin?” The name is completely foreign but it sounded lovely. She told him as much.

“It was a lovely city,” he said fondly.

“Was?”

“The enemy razed it to the ground a long, long time ago.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories. I’m sorry.”

“Not all of my memories of Gondolin are bad,” he said. “I had a house there with a tower built of white stone. And in the spring the garden was carpeted with celandines.”

“What’s a celandine?”

“A yellow flower,” he said, holding up two fingers to denote the size of the flower. “They have nine petals arrayed like a starburst.”

“They sound pretty.”

He smiled. “They are beautiful.”

She looked closely at his cloak, clasped at his throat. “That’s a celandine on the clasp, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I rather like them,” he said.

Aragorn snorted from his seat at the front of the cart. “Like them? You were the Lord of the House of the Golden Flower!”

Glorfindel shrugged and smiles as if to say 'Well, what can you do?'

She couldn’t help but smile in response. 

Glorfindel started to sing a song about celandine blossoms nodding under a sudden shower. The tune was slow but the words were light and happy. She swallowed a yawn (it hurt to yawn widely) and let her eyes slip closed. His words trailed off and he replaced them with just a humming melody. She feel asleep to the sway of the cart, the bells tinkling from Asfaloth and the hum of Glorfindel’s voice.

She woke when the cart stopped, shivering with a chill. Elrohir passed her a little bottle of tonic. 

“It is just as well that we are close to home, this is the last bottle.”

“Halbarad did not fully convey the severity of her injuries,” Glorfindel said in a low voice to Aragorn.

“It was dark, he did not know,” Aragorn said.

Charlotte touched her bandaged cheek and winced. It was swollen and felt sticky through the bandages. Not for the first time she wondered just how bad the infection was. 

Once she had finished the tonic, they set off again as before. Elrohir walking with the horses, Aragorn and Halbarad in the cart, and Glorfindel riding behind. Instead of watching the forest, however, he now watched her. 

The forest thinned out and became grassy before steep banks of red stone rose up on either side of the road. They were topped with dark pines which threw everything into soft shadows. The creaking wheels of the cart and the hooves of the horses echoed and seemed to multiply all around them. Charlotte sat up and twisted to look ahead. The road suddenly spilled out of the narrow ravine in the hill and swept down, broad and flat, for a kilometer to the river. It was the ford at last.

On the other side of the ford the river bank was steep and there the road was not much more than a narrow track winding up the bank. Behind that rose the mountains, one after the other, undulating peaks of stone and snow.

“Oh, wow,” she whispered.

“That is the Bruinen,” said Glorfindel. “We are not far now.”

On the other side of the river the road was narrow and the roots of the mountain pressed close on either side. Instead of heading due east, the road turned to the north and after a few kilometers joined with the Bruinen again. There the river ran swift and deep, narrower than it was when they crossed it. The mountains rose steeply on either side, bald rock cliffs jutting out from the forested lower slopes, and white capped tops towering high above. There was singing in the trees around them but she couldn’t see where the voices were coming from. She looked up in wonder at the mountains above her, towering as high as any alpine peak. Waterfalls cascaded down the mountainsides, joining the river in the valley. Dozens and dozens of them. 

“Welcome to Imladris,” said Glordindel. 

“Oh,” she said. That was all she could muster in the face of such beauty.

They followed the road along the river for several more kilometers. Here and there, through the trees, she caught glimpses of fields of brilliant green wheat spread like a soft carpet, or pastures for animals. But she saw no fences or elves at work. Then the forest opened up to reveal a narrow bridge which spanned the river, and stone and timber buildings on the grassy slopes on the far bank.

“From here we must walk,” said Aragorn, drawing the cart to a halt. 

She had been so busy gawking at the mountains and the waterfalls that she hadn’t even noticed that everyone had stopped beside a stone stable. Elrohir’s twin was waiting, dressed in fresh clothes.

Charlotte scooted towards the end of the cart and dangled her feet off of the edge. Someone was going to have to carry her and she was not certain she was comfortable being carried across such a narrow bridge.

“I have excellent balance,” said the twin who was not Elrohir, bounding over to the cart. “I will dance across the bridge so quickly that you will scarcely know we have moved at all.”

“Don’t believe his boasts,” said the twin who was Elrohir. “He pushed our own mother off of that bridge.”

“I was thirty!” cried the first twin indignantly. “Just a child!”

“And has Ada forgiven you yet?” asked Elrohir.

Ada means ‘Daddy’, Charlotte realized, they call their father ‘Daddy.’ She just couldn’t picture anyone looking at Hugo Weaving and unironically calling him ‘Daddy.’

“I will carry her,” said Glorfindel. “If you will allow me?” He gave a little bow.

“Promise you won’t drop me,” she said.

“You have my word.”

As lightly as the twins and the men dashed across the bridge, once Glorfindel crossed she was confident that he was the best choice. His strides were even and unhurried. If she were to close her eyes it would easy to imagine that he was strolling down the road and not across a narrow bridge above a tumultuous river. But she didn’t close her eyes, instead she stared beyond the green tile roof line of the buildings on the other side of the river, at the mountain which rose above them.

Behind the buildings a grassy hill rose steeply to meet a forest of oaks, beeches and pines. The forest climbed the mountainside and as it neared the treeline, it thinned to just pines standing proud and tall. Steep and jagged rock towered above the forest--bald and bare. Folded beyond that were snowy mountains, lofty and grand.

She hardly had time to take in the exterior of the building before Glorfindel was stepping through the arched doorway. The interior was bathed in bright sunlight spilling through a multitude of floor to ceiling windows. The floor was made of smooth stone cut and arranged in patterns that resemble a canopy of leaves. The walls were lined with columns of polished wood carved to look like trees stretching up and branching overhead. In between the columns were tapestries which resembled paintings more than a weaving, depicting scenes of nature: plants and trees, water and sky. She looked up and stared in wonder at the ceiling. It was set with a mosaic of glass and tile in every shade of blue. It was like looking up into a clear noonday sky.

“Oh,” she whispered.

Glorfindel laughed. “I think you have been robbed of speech.”

She could only nod.

“Estel, I am glad to see you home.”

She tore her eyes away from the ceiling to see Aragorn embracing an elf. The elf pulled back and smiled warmly at Aragorn. Then he turned to her.

He pressed a clasped fist to his chest and bows, a greeting she realized was the Arda equivalent of a firm handshake. “Well met. Welcome to Imladris. I am Elrond.”

“Oh,” she said, stunned. “Hello there.”

She didn’t know why she had expected Elrond to look like his movie counterpart--Mithrandir certainly didn’t look like Gandalf in the movies--but she found herself shocked at how very different Elrond looked. He wasn’t as tall as Glorfindel or even his sons, but he was still as tall as Aragorn. He was a bit thicker-set, with broad shoulders and powerful looking arms. His hair, blue-black it iswas so dark, had a wave to it and it hung past his collar. His face was square like his sons’ and his gray eyes, hooded and narrow, were kind and welcoming.

“She is Charlotte Williams,” said Aragorn.

She realized with a flush that she had been openly staring at him and hadn’t introduced herself. “Yes, I’m Charlotte.”

Elrond was wearing garments just like Glorfindel and the twins, but his were much grander. They were dark blue and embroidered all over with a celestial pattern. His belt was made of silver and he wore a circlet of silver on his head. On his finger was a silver ring set with a large blue stone.

“She has injured her ankle,” said Glorfindel. “And the infection that has taken hold in the wound on her face is concerning.”

She flushed. She had gone back to staring again.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Do not apologize,” Elrond said. “I am sure you are weary after your journey.” He brushed his hair back and tucks it behind a pointed ear.

Wait.

She had completely forgotten that elves were supposed to have pointed ears. 

“Do you all have pointed ears?” you whispered to Glorfindel.

“Yes,” he whispered back. “Do you all have round ears?”

“Yes,” she said.

“That’s weird,” he said.

If it were possible for an eye roll to be audible, Elrond’s most certainly was.

“I received news from Mithrandir of your coming,” Elrond said. “He said you had a message for me.”

She brushed her hand across the Ring, hidden beneath her dress but said nothing.

“Let us take you to the Halls of Healing and see to your injury. Later we will discuss your business from Mithrandir,” said Elrond.

She nodded, but felt nervous. She tighten her grip around Glorfindel’s neck. He gave her a little reassuring squeeze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. My headcanon is that all elves of Imladris sent out on patrol carry a flask of miruvor with them.  
> 2\. I never explicitly told S that elves that have seen the light of the trees are a bit... luminescent. But both S and Charlotte pick up on the fact that Glorfindel is very shiny, haha  
> 3\. I 100% messed up the timeline of Arwen's return to Rivendell. By literal years. But I didn't realize it until I was chapters and chapters after this part of the story and had written her return and you know what, I'm just leaving it. We're going to pretend that I didn't mess up and leave it as I originally wrote it.  
> 4\. After so many generations, it's unlikely that Aragorn and the twins would resemble each other. The dark hair and eyes I decided to keep but otherwise they really don't look anything alike.   
> 5\. Elrohir means "elf-knight" and Elladan means "elf-man." Elrohir is more like Elrond and other elves. He is a warrior, but also a talented healer. Elladan is more man-like. One of the twins has already made his choice in my headcanon. You'll find out which one later in the story.  
> 6\. "Unusually fair weather" = I forgot to include rain.  
> 7\. Hymn to Elbereth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CfRJSKk2Ls  
> 8\. Charlotte's infection is a lot worse than she realizes.  
> 9\. Both Charlotte and S forgot that she had already heard the story of Gondolin and the blonde balrog slayer. But I suppose that's realistic. When you're in a wholly new environment you can't be expected to catalog and memorize every bit of new information you hear.  
> 10\. It's said that Rivendell was partially based on Lauterbrunnen. I decided to go with that idea and nestled my version of Imladis into a deep valley in the mountains. Ted Nasmith's painting of Rivendell (http://www.tednasmith.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/TN-Fair_Valley_of_Rivendell.jpg) is my favorite depiction of the Last Homely House and that is what all of my descriptions in this story are based on. I even built it in the Sims so that I could get a good idea of what the floor plan would be!  
> 11\. Charlotte will get to explore the valley later on in the story, but there are fields and farms and other houses and outbuildings surrounding the main house. Tolkien wasn't much interested in the day-to-day technicalities of his civilizations, but I am. So there will be lots of little bits of world building tucked in here and there for all of you.  
> 12\. Poor Celebrian, getting pushed off a bridge by her rambunctious children, haha  
> 13\. Hugo Weavings portrayal of Elrond was great...but not Elrond. So my Elrond is not at all like Hugo Weaving.  
> 14\. Thank you for reading! See you all next week!


End file.
